Chapter 38
INZAL KAZAB CORRINO
After accepting the challenge of kanli, Inzal found himself in his solar with most of his closest aides alongside him as Lady Jessica hounded her son for answers.
"What is the meaning of this, Paul?" she shouted and screamed. The boy in question simply sat there, unbothered by the ruckus around him, staring Inzal in the eye.
"Why would you do such a thing?" she shouted, and when received no answer.
"WHY? ANSWER ME DAMNIT! ANSWER ME!" she screamed, and yet there was no answer, only silence.
Chani had been quiet ever since her arrival, only looking at Paul with a resigned and complicated expression.
When Paul refused to budge, he saw Jessica turn towards her.
"And you. You knew of his lineage, of how he was the Harkonnen heir," she asked, and he raised a brow.
"I had my suspicions," he answered, not hiding the truth from her.
"You need to change your mind, deny Paul this madness that he seeks. I shall have him imprisoned for insanity and take back the challenge," she argued, trying to make sense, but there was no way such a thing would even work.
"Leave us," he ordered and saw everyone in the room perk up at his words.
"Bu..."
"I said leave us," he repeated, looking at Lady Jessica sternly, and her lips thinned as she huffed and began to walk out of the room, everyone else soon followed suit, leaving him alone with Paul—or more exactly, the stranger now inhabiting his body.
Inzal leaned back as he looked him in the eye, as he broke the silence.
"When I had Paul undergo the ritual, I was not really expecting you to show up, Leto?" he taunted, testing out his own hypothesis about just who was it that had overpowered Paul to take control of his body.
And he saw Paul's lips turn up slightly as the boy nodded.
"I should have known that you would figure out my identity," the boy spoke in Paul's face. And that had been his miscalculation. When making his plans, Inzal had accounted for mostly the past, ignoring the future that was no longer set to happen.
And yet he had forgotten that it had been Paul's blood that had given birth to a boy who would go in to change the entire galaxy, ruling over it after Paul for thousands of years. His name is enshrined in history as the God Emperor.
"Though I am surprised by your actions, Leto. Why do you stand against me, stand against your own liberation and happiness? Afterall, my actions have only liberated you and your father from the accursed burden you thought fate had levied onto you," he added. And a great burden it was, the burden of foresight and hindsight rolled into one. The ability to perceive the future and the calamity that lay hidden in it.
It had driven them both into solitude, depriving them both of their humanity and a chance at happiness.
"You have done an admirable job, indeed. But you do not understand the things you are meddling with," Paul answered, and there was an inflection in his voice, one that made it more rusty and ancient.
"So, you still seek the Golden Path?" Inzal asked, and Paul's eyes widened for a second.
"You know of that too," he was surprised by his knowledge.
"As I told your father, I know much more than you think," he answered cryptically.
And Paul was quiet for some time as he continued to stare at him.
"Know this, Inzal, that I bear you or your kin no ill will. You have helped my own blood a lot, saved thousands of lives, and altered the fate of many, but I must stop you not for a desire of the throne but for the sake of humanity," he lectured, making Inzal scoff.
Humanity was such an abstract concept. What was good for humanity? This human obsession with the proverbial greater good was deeply rooted in the Bene Gesserit propaganda and was something that Inzal hated.
"And who gave you the right to decide what is best for humanity?" Inzal asked sharply and saw Paul's eyes widen as he failed to comprehend his question.
"You know as well as anyone, the truth of what I am, of what a Kwisatz Haderach is, and what I can see. Humanity can only ever survive if we take the Golden Pat..."
"And who is to say that this Golden Path is indeed this salvation you seek? Who can verify the truth of your future sight?" Inzal challenged angrily, his own fists balling up.
"The Kwisatz Had..."
"IS NOT A GOD!" Inzal roared and saw Paul shrink back slightly. He may be the Kwisatz Haderach, but Inzal was not without power as well. He had spent a lot more on this planet, using his powers and pushing them to the limits.
"He is a human born with some special powers, nothing much. And I refuse to believe that the future is so set in stone that all the blood, sweat, and tears of people all over the world are meaningless," Inzal challenged.
"I see. You are like those heretics. You do not believe me," Paul began, and Inzal leaned back.
"I refuse to believe in fate. I believe I am the carver of my own destiny. You think that the Golden Path is the only way for humanity to survive? I say bull shit!" Inzal answered.
"You are wrong," Paul voiced out sharply, and he shrugged.
"Then so be it. I would much rather die being the master of my own fate than to be a sheep collared around by a so-called prophet," Inzal spoke with finality, showcasing his own intentions.
"Then our paths are set. I shall meet you in the ring then," Paul said as he stood up and began to move towards the door.
"Tell me one thing," Inzal called out and saw him stop as he pulled on the door.
"Did your powers show you your victory as well?" Inzal asked and saw Paul's eyes narrow.
"They did not. But that does not mean I will lose," the God Emperor replied as he looked him in the eye.
"After all, you forget that I have thousands of years of experience, something which you cannot replicate," he replied.
"And yet you were not so human, for most of them, were you?" Inzal answered and wet his lips.
"I will prove to you that your visions are false. That we are the masters of our own fate."
0000
IRULAN CORRINO
The kanli challenge from Paul had taken everyone by surprise, and now the ramifications of it were becoming clearer by the day. Inzal's alliance with the Atreides was strong, and he had literally saved them and their House from extinction. Paul Atreides had no reason to go against Inzal or their House, and that is why the whole kanli thing unsettled everyone coming out of the blue.
And though Inzal himself looked no different than before, there were signs of anger and frustration there. She and Lady Jessica had spent quite a bit of time arguing over this whole affair as she accused the Duchess of being a party in all this, of being a conniving back-stabbing bastard standing against everything House Atreides stood for.
"It was a mistake," Inzal spoke as he shook his head, his voice emotional and filled with rage.
"It was," she agreed, knowing full well what he was referring to.
"And now this one mistake could unravel everything," her brother snarled as he smashed his fist on the table.
She told him, thinking his actions were wrong, "You should not have accepted Kali's challenge."
"You could still declare it all false and pull back. Lady Jessica, as the truth sayer, could nullify the whole thing using an obscure law and have Paul declared unfit," she argued, knowing that the Atreides Duchess was wroth over all this as well.
But Inzal shook his head with a sigh.
"That would not have worked. Not against him," he spoke, and there was a bit of reverence in his tone as he mentioned him.
"The fact that he chose to challenge me openly speaks of a level of respect and understanding for the sacrifices I have made. He could have simply stood by and acted along and plotted against me through more subtle means, but he did not. This is the cleanest way to end things, and in some ways, is the most just way he could have offered me," he said, and her eyes narrowed.
"And who exactly is this he you speak of? We discussed Paul's ascension before, and you assured me that there was none in his line before him that could exert their influence on him. You seemed rather certain that Paul would be able to stand against the shadows of his ancestors, but now we all know that you were wrong," she added and saw him nod.
"Yes, I was wrong. Though not entirely," he said as he spun around in his chair and faced her, his blue eyes gazing into her own.
"When I allowed Paul to undergo the ascension, I did account for all of his ancestors and had good reason to believe that he would triumph over them all. And I was right; Paul did triumph over them," he said, and she frowned.
"But this is not Paul. You admitted just now. Even earlier, you called him by another name," she mentioned, recalling the name he had used.
"Leto, you called him," she mentioned with a frown, the name of the unconscious Duke.
"I was not wrong because no one from Paul's ancestors could stand up to him. But the only thing I failed at was accounting for those in Paul's lineage yet to be born," and his answer had her still as she tried to understand the implication of those words.
And when she did, her eyes widened, and she gulped down, haunted by the truth of it all.
"You mean to say..." and Inzal nodded.
"Indeed, this Leto, Leto the second as he was named, is not one of Paul's ancestors. No, he is the son that would have been born to him and Chani Kynes of the Fremen nearly a decade from today," and she shook her head.
"But that is impossible," she gasped out as she tried to wrap her head around all this.
"I believed so as well. A Kwisatz Haderach is supposed to be the amalgamation of his genetic memories, and that includes only one's ancestors and not their offspring. And yet I was wrong, and now we are faced with this dilemma," he sighed at those words, missing her point.
"I understand that, but you are skipping over another rather important detail," and at that, she narrowed her eyes at him.
"How do you know so much of him if he was born in the future?" she asked, and she saw him still for a second. Her question unsettled him, she could tell, as she saw him drum his fingers on the table.
In the end, he gave a long sigh and leaned back in his chair as silence hung in the room. His eyes gazed into her own as he slowly opened his mouth.
"Because when I was first born into this world, becoming me in our mother's womb, I was born with another set of memories," he answered, the words stilling her.
"Memories?" she questioned, and he nodded.
"Indeed, memories riddled with the past, present, and the future of this galaxy," and as she heard those words, her eyes widened.
"Yet in my memories, there was one major difference between the reality we live in today and the world I saw in my memories," he elaborated as he gave her a forlorn smile.
"In that world, Inzal Kazab Corrino did not exist."
0000
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