Mentats of Dune

Not wanting to wait to get back to her quarters, she opened the vial and sipped the sapho. The taste was pungent and bitter, not at all sweet, as it appeared. Deciding that a mere sip could not possibly be enough, she upended the vial and drained it before she could react further to the taste.

She hid the empty vial at the back of a shelf and licked her lips. She rubbed her mouth on her forearm, leaving a red stain. She wondered how long it would take for her to notice the effects of the sapho. A

If she were caught …

That thought triggered a troubling echo in her mind, and she began to think of other times she’d been caught at the Imperial Palace, and other consequences. Horrific consequences. She felt memories well up, one after another, like bubbles rising to the surface of a boiling pot.

With sapho, the bubble-memories were brighter and fresher than they would have been otherwise, vivid in all of their details. She remembered slipping away to meet her young lover. She had loved Hirondo with such intensity, although he was only a palace chef who was deemed inappropriate for her affections. It wasn’t fair! The romance lasted for several weeks before they were discovered and torn from each other’s arms. After she kept trying to see him, Hirondo was banished — perhaps executed, she was never sure — and then she was exiled to the Sisterhood school on Rossak.

The sapho continued to work inside her brain, triggering more memories.

When she was fifteen, she had taken some of Empress Tabrina’s jewelry because she thought it was pretty. The Empress accused one of the female servants of stealing it, and A

That should have been the end of the matter, but Emperor Salvador was not satisfied. “Sister, you have to understand consequences and know that you’re responsible when other people get in the way of your indiscretions.” He flared his nostrils. “We will carry out the sentence as decreed.”

And so, A

The memories were so vivid, the pain so fresh and clear, that A

More memories surfaced like bats swooping out of a cave at dusk, and the more painful they were, the more intense they appeared in her mind. She could see only her past and not the dim corridors of the Mentat School.

“Help,” she whispered aloud, but she was far from her mysterious friend, who never spoke to her except when she was in her own room. A

The sapho continued to rush through her bloodstream.

She remembered one of her beloved pets, a silky dog so small it could curl up in her lap. But it barked too much, and Salvador always hated it. Her dog died mysteriously, and A

Now, in the dim room A

“Help me,” she said aloud. “I can’t stop.”

The memories grew louder, more intense. She saw herself as a girl, playing in the extensive palace gardens and arboretum. But now she had more context, more understanding. She had been too young to comprehend the politics of what was happening in the Imperium, the turmoil caused by the release of the Orange Catholic Bible, how the people despised the Commission of Ecumenical Translators who claimed to speak for God. The popular mood was already raw and inflamed from constant Butlerian provocations, and Emperor Jules had struggled to keep his government from tearing itself apart. As a girl, she hadn’t understood why the CET members, led by their spokesman Toure Bomoko, remained in protective exile.

She had been such an i

Now, thanks to the sapho, the memory came fully alive inside her. A child again, A

Then she saw Ore

When the girl yelled for help, the man jerked away, and she recognized him as Toure Bomoko, head of the CET delegation. Now, Ore

The sapho reawakened her memories of the uproar in the palace and the rage on Emperor Jules’s face. Ore

In a completely unconvincing voice, Lady Ore

A

Thanks to the sapho coursing through her, she now remembered those sounds of death in incredible detail: the sharp thud, the pop of a severed spine, a wet rain of spraying blood. When she had tried to turn away, her father made her look.

Salvador and Roderick were also there. Even though her brothers were much older than A

A

It was then, at last, that she heard the voice of her special new friend, calm and supportive, yet also curious.

“I take it the sapho unlocked your memories? Excellent! You must tell me what happened — tell me everything.”

Chapter 29 (Just repeating a statement often)

Just repeating a statement often and with great vehemence does not make it a fact, and no amount of repetition can make a rational person believe it.

— DRAIGO ROGET, report to Venport Holdings, “Analysis of Fanatical Patterns”