Dune

Paul and Jessica are surrounded by a group of Fremen. The group is led by Stilgar, Duncan Idaho’s onetime ally. Stilgar recognizes Paul and—even though a Fremen named Jamis protests—accepts Paul into their tribe. Unlike Paul, Jessica is untrained in the Fremen’s desert ways. As such, they fear she will be a burden. The Fremen plan to kill her and take her body’s water, but Jessica moves fast, disarming Stilgar as Paul attacks the others. Stilgar realizes that Jessica has powers of her own so he makes a deal with her: The Fremen will take care of Paul and Jessica, and in exchange Jessica will teach the Fremen about the Bene Gesserit fighting techniques.

Stilgar orders a young Fremen woman named Chani to stop hunting Paul. The Fremen begin to wonder whether Jessica is the woman from their prophecy. Meanwhile, Jessica plans to use their prophecy to her advantage. A young woman steps forward and introduces herself to Paul as “Chani, daughter of Liet” (389). He immediately recognizes her from his dreams.

The group head toward the Fremen settlement, known as a sietch. As they move, Jessica observes the purpose and precision with which the Fremen proceed. She speculates about their “priceless” (393) military potential.

Paul, Jessica, and the Fremen arrive at the Cave of Ridges. Stilgar tells Chani to take care of Paul while he gives Jessica a tour of the sietch. Jessica is concerned that she has damaged Stilgar’s credibility among the Fremen by beating him in combat. He assures her that this is not the case, as he could not have predicted that she would use Bene Gesserit tricks. He also reminds her that, for all these tricks, she does not know the ways of the Arrakis desert. Stilgar also confirms long-held suspicions that the Fremen have a secret relationship with the Spacing Guild, paying the Guild in spice to prevent spy or weather satellites from being launched above the planet. They have been secretly trying to make Arrakis more habitable for a long time. Jessica thinks about her immediate future with the Fremen. Stilgar offers her a position in the Fremen called Sayyadina, the equivalent to the Reverend Mother.

Elsewhere, Paul eats food prepared by Chani. The sheer quantity of spice in the food influences Paul, forcing his mind into a new state of heightened awareness. He sees into the future, identifying the mistakes in his previous visions. For all his ability to see the branching nature of multiple futures, Paul’s last vision is of “his own dead body with blood flowing from a gaping knife wound” (404).

When Jessica wakes up, she hears Stilgar and Jamis arguing. Jamis wants to challenge Paul to single combat to test whether he adheres to the Fremen prophecy. Jessica and Stilgar cannot convince Jamis not to challenge Paul; Jessica even considers using the Voice but decides against doing so. Paul and Jamis fight using knives. Paul’s mind is full of advice from Chani and lessons from Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. He also sees the vision of himself with a knife in his chest. Upon gaining the upper hand, Paul tries to make Jamis yield, but Jamis refuses. Stilgar says that yielding is forbidden among the Fremen because “death is the test of it” (414). Paul continues to try to make Jamis yield, but Jamis again refuses. Eventually, Paul is forced to kill him. In a rush of activity, the Fremen take Jamis’s body away to remove its water, while Stilgar gives Paul a Fremen name: Usul. Paul chooses a second name, calling himself Muad’Dib after the desert mice native to Arrakis. By choosing the name Paul-Muad’Dib, Paul realizes that he has slightly altered the future.

The Fremen hold a funeral for Jamis, and Paul takes part in the ceremony. Chani insists that he take some of Jamis’s water to make up for the water Jamis spilled in the fight. Along with Jamis’s friends, Jessica and Paul speak at the funeral. Paul sheds a tear for Jamis, who taught him that killing comes at a cost. Shedding tears is a sacred sign of respect in the water-scarce culture of the Fremen. Among the Fremen, rings are used to represent the water a member of the tribe owns. After adding his own water to the communal collection, Paul asks Chani to hold his rings, unaware that this gesture means he is proposing to her.

The Fremen go into a deep cave system. Inside is a giant lake; the Fremen add the water taken from Jamis to the lake. The Fremen, Stilgar explains, do not touch the lake water, as it is being saved for the day when there is enough to change the surface of Arrakis into a more hospitable world. Paul uses Jamis’s musical instrument to sing a song for Chani. The lake makes him think about the religious war that may be a part of his future. He worries that his mother will bring about the religious war he fears and that she may need to be stopped.

On Giedi Prime, Count Fenring and Lady Fenring, two associates of the Emperor, are summoned to the Harkonnen castle to watch Feyd-Rautha take part in gladiatorial combat against a slave as part of his 17th birthday celebration. Baron Harkonnen introduces Count and Lady Fenring to Feyd-Rautha, who offers to dedicate his victory to Lady Fenring. She politely declines, so Feyd-Rautha leaves.

The Count and the Baron talk using a secretive cone of silence, muting their conversation to outside ears. The Count warns the Baron that the Emperor is unimpressed that the Baron has sent the Sardaukar away from Arrakis, though the Baron claims that the order was unavoidable. The Emperor also wishes to see the spice mining accounts. Privately, the Baron hopes that the Count will accuse him of something, so he can prove himself innocent and gain the upper hand in the conversation. After listening to the Baron’s suggestion that they may turn Arrakis into a prison, the Count asks whether the Baron is really employing Thufir Hawat. The Baron says that this is true but rejects the Count’s insistence that Hawat be executed until the Count has a death sentence signed by the Emperor himself.

Afterwards, they watch Feyd-Rautha’s fight. With Hawat’s help, Feyd-Rautha has manipulated the fight to be hugely in his favor. He defeats the slave gladiator and wins the adoration of the baying crowd. The Baron orders a festival to celebrate the victory and then leaves Count and Lady Fenring alone. The Fenrings have their own plan: Lady Fenring, a Bene Gesserit, will seduce Feyd-Rautha and bear his child. They will use mind control tricks to bend him to her will. Meanwhile, the Count laments the death of Paul Atreides, though Lady Fenring tells him not to be so sure that Paul is dead until he sees a body.

Stilgar and his Fremen return to the sietch to welcome Paul into the cave system which is now his home. There, he explains to Jessica that the Fremen can use spice to make everything from plastics to explosives. Meanwhile, Paul hears people exchanging rumors and information, telling him that they are sorry for Chani, that Dr. Kynes is dead, and that Chani is Kynes’ daughter.

Paul meets Jamis’s wife Harah, who is now Paul’s responsibility according to Fremen custom. He must care for Jamis’s wife and children for at least a year, choosing whether to make Harah his wife or servant. Paul chooses to make her a servant, much to her annoyance. She takes him to Jamis’s old quarters, where Paul will live. As they pass through the caves, she explains the elaborate Fremen machines and techniques for collecting water The bustle of life in the sietch will become even more hectic soon as the Fremen will need to move their camp to avoid the Sardaukar guards. They also pass a school, set up by Kynes, which teaches the Fremen children about a future habitable Arrakis with trees and grass. As Paul rests in his quarters, he thinks about how both he and Chani have lost their fathers. At that moment, Jamis’s children enter, each armed with a traditional Fremen crysknife.

In a large cavern, more than 20,000 Fremen gather to watch Jessica perform an initiation. Paul arrives, accompanied by Jamis’s sons, Orlop and Kaleff. They flank him as though they are child bodyguards. Paul sees Chani, who is wearing a green cloth as a sign of mourning. On the stage, Stilgar tells the Fremen that they will need to move soon. Their current Reverend Mother will be too weak to make the trip, he says, but Lady Jessica will replace her. Should Jessica fail the initiation, Chani will take her place.

Jessica drinks water infused with spice as part of the initiation ceremony. The spice affects her thoughts, taking her to a place in her mind called Other Memory where “only a Kwisatz Haderach” (483) is permitted to enter. She is joined in this place by the previous Reverend Mother, who knows that Jessica is pregnant. The previous Reverend Mother passes Jessica the collective memories of all her predecessors. Afterwards, she dies. Jessica is now the Reverend Mother. She feels that her unborn daughter has been brought into awareness already and she worries what this will mean in the future. Jessica opens her eyes and continues the ceremony, sharing the spice water and bringing the other Fremen into her collective memories for a short time. Paul drinks the water and experiences a vision, seeing himself balanced on a tightrope between his enemies and the Fremen’s religious war. When he cries, Chani wonders whether he is offering a sacrifice to the dead. Instead, Paul tells her that he is crying for those who will die in the future. Paul and Chani declare their love for one another.