Chapter 61 Chapter 61

Dust blown by the wind hangs over the horizon like a thick fog, blocking the rising sun.The sand is still cool in the shade of the dunes.Leto stood on the crater of Palmrice, looking at the desert in the distance.He smelled the dust and the scent of the thorns, and heard the early morning movements of men and animals.The Fremen here did not build aqueducts.All they have is a meager amount of hand-planted vegetation, and a few women are watering it from leather bags they carry with them.Their wind catchers are not very strong and can be easily destroyed by sandstorms, but they are easy to repair.Suffering, the brutality of the spice trade, and adventure combined to shape the way of life here.These Fremen still firmly believe that heaven is a place where the sound of running water can be heard.But these are the very same people who still cherish the old idea of ​​freedom that Leto also shares.

To be free is to be alone, he thought. Leto adjusted the laces of the white robes that covered his living stillsuit.He could feel how the sandtrout's membranes were changing themselves.Along with this feeling, he had to force himself to overcome a deep sense of loss.He is no longer a pure person.Something strange ran in his blood.Sandtrout's cilia had penetrated all his organs, and his organs were constantly adjusting and changing.Sandtrout themselves are adjusting, adapting.Leto felt this, but he still felt the remaining human feelings tearing at his heart, feeling that his life was in anguish, because the long continuity was cut by him.However, he knew the consequences of indulging this feeling.He knows it all too well.

Let the future happen, he thought, the only rule that can guide the act of creation is creation itself. His eyes did not want to leave the desert, the dunes, the great void.There are rocks lying on the edge of the desert, and the sight of them triggers images of wind, sand, rare and lonely vegetation and animals, how dunes merge into dunes, and how deserts merge into deserts. Behind him came the sound of the flute to the morning prayers.To the newborn Xia Hulu, the prayer for moisture seemed like a serenade.With this feeling, the music seems to be accompanied by eternal loneliness. I could just walk into the desert, he thought.

If you do, everything will change.He can choose which direction to go, no matter which direction is the same.He has learned to live without encumbrance, elevating the mystical Fremen way of life to dire heights: everything he carries is necessary, and beyond that he asks for nothing: the robes on his body, The eagle ring of House Atreides hidden on the lanyard, and the skin that didn't belong to him. It's so easy to walk into the desert from here. A movement in the air caught his attention: the shape of the wings suggested it was a vulture.The sight made his heart ache.Like the Freemen in the wild, the vultures chose to live here because it was their birthplace.They know no better place.The desert made them.

However, with the reign of Muad'di and Alia, a new breed of Freemen was born.It was because of them that he couldn't walk into the desert like his father.Leto remembered something Idaho said a long time ago: "These Fremen, their lives are glorious. I've never met a greedy Fremen." Now there are a lot of greedy Fremen. Sorrow ran through Leto.He was determined to embark on that path and change everything, but the price to pay for it was too high.And, as he got closer to the finish line, that path became more and more unmanageable. Claritzk, the ultimate struggle, is at hand...but there is a price to be paid for being lost: Claritzk or worse.

There was a voice behind Leto, and a crisp child's voice reached his ears. "Here he is." Leto turned away. The missionary came out of Parmless.A child led him ahead. Why do I still think of him as a missionary?Leto asked himself. The answer was clearly imprinted in Leto's mind: because he was no longer Muad'di, and he was no longer Paul Atreides.The desert made him what he was now—the desert, and the heavy doses of spices fed to him by Jakrutu's lackeys, plus their frequent treachery.The missionary was much older than his years, and the spices did not slow his aging, but accelerated the aging process.

"They said you wanted to see me." The missionary said after the kid guide stopped. Leto looked at Pamlace's child, who was almost as tall as himself, with a mixture of awe and curiosity on his face.A pair of young eyes peeked out from the visor of the small stillsuit. Leto waved. "Go away." For a moment, the child's shoulder showed signs of reluctance, but soon the Fremen's instinct for privacy took over.He left them. "Did you know that Falcon was in Arrakis?" Leto asked. "Gurney told me when he flew me here last night." The preacher thought: How cold was his tone.He's like me in the old days.

"I faced a difficult decision," Leto said. "I thought you had already made your choice." "We all know the trap, Father." The missionary cleared his throat.The tension in the scene told him how close they were to crisis now.Leto no longer relies solely on precognitive visions, but more importantly, he must master them and manage them. "You need my help?" the missionary asked. "Yes, I'm going back to Araken, and I hope to go back as your guide." "why?" "Can you preach in Araken again?" "Perhaps. I still have something to say to them."

"You can't go back to the desert, father." "If I promise to go back with you?" "yes." "I will obey whatever you decide." "Have you considered it? Falakon is here, and your mother must be with him." "no doubt." The missionary cleared his throat again.It revealed a nervousness in him that Muad'di would never allow.This body is too far away from the period of self-restraint, and Jakrutu's madness is often exposed in his consciousness.Perhaps the missionaries thought it was an unwise choice to return to Araken? "You don't have to go back with me," Leto said, "but my sister is there, and I must. You can go with Gurney."

"Are you going to see Araken alone?" "Yes, I have to see Falcon." "I'll go with you." The missionary sighed. From the behavior of the missionary, Leto felt that the other party still had a trace of illusion left by the past.He thought: Is he still playing that phantom trick?No.He won't go down that road again.He knew what it would be like to be disconnected from the past.Every word of the missionary shows that he has completely entrusted his vision to his son, because he knows that his son has foreseen all the developments in the universe. "We're leaving in a few minutes," Leto said. "Do you want to tell Gurney?"

"Gurney won't come with us?" "I want Gurney to live." The missionary no longer fights the tension in his heart.Tension was hidden in the air around him, in the ground beneath his feet, it was everywhere but concentrated in the child who wasn't a child.Visions of the past choked in his throat, ready to cry out at any moment. He couldn't resist the fear that was rising in his body.He knew what they were going to face in Araken.They will again wield that terrible and deadly power, and they will never have peace.