Dune by Frank Herbert

had ever been before. He recalled another thing the old woman had said about a world being the sum of many things—the people, the dirt, the growing things, the moons, the tides, the suns—the unknown sum called nature, a vague summation without any sense of the now. And he wondered: What is the now?
    The door across from Paul banged open and an ugly lump of a man lurched through it preceded by a handful of weapons.
    â€œWell, Gurney Halleck,” Paul called, “are you the new weapons master?”
    Halleck kicked the door shut with one heel. “You’d rather I came to play games, I know,” he said. He glanced around the room, noting that Hawat’s men already had been over it, checking, making it safe for a duke’s heir. The subtle code signs were all around.
    Paul watched the rolling, ugly man set himself back in motion, veer toward the training table with the load of weapons, saw the nine-string baliset slung over Gurney’s shoulder with the multipick woven through the strings near the head of the fingerboard.
    Halleck dropped the weapons on the exercise table, lined them up—the rapiers, the bodkins, the kindjals, the slow-pellet stunners, the shield belts. The inkvine scar along his jawline writhed as he turned, casting a smile across the room.
    â€œSo you don’t even have a good morning for me, you young imp,” Halleck said. “And what barb did you sink in old Hawat? He passed me in the hall like a man running to his enemy’s funeral.”
    Paul grinned. Of all his father’s men, he liked Gurney Halleck best, knew the man’s moods and deviltry, his humors, and thought of him more as a friend than as a hired sword.
    Halleck swung the baliset off his shoulder, began tuning it. “If y’ won’t talk, y’ won’t,” he said.
    Paul stood, advanced across the room, calling out: “Well, Gurney, do we come prepared for music when it’s fighting time?”
    â€œSo it’s sass for our elders today,” Halleck said. He tried a chord on the instrument, nodded.
    â€œWhere’s Duncan Idaho?” Paul asked. “Isn’t he supposed to be teaching me weaponry?”
    â€œDuncan’s gone to lead the second wave onto Arrakis,” Halleck said. “All you have left is poor Gurney who’s fresh out of fight and spoiling for music.” He struck another chord, listened to it, smiled.
    â€œAnd it was decided in council that you being such a poor fighter we’d best teach you the music trade so’s you won’t waste your life entire.”
    â€œMaybe you’d better sing me a lay then,” Paul said. “I want to be sure how not to do it.”
    â€œAh-h-h, hah!” Gurney laughed, and he swung into “Galacian Girls,” his multipick a blur over the strings as he sang:
    â€œOh-h-h, the Galacian girls
Will do it for pearls,
And the Arrakeen for water!
But if you desire dames
Like consuming flames,
Try a Caladanin daughter!”
    â€œNot bad for such a poor hand with the pick,” Paul said, “but if my mother heard you singing a bawdy like that in the castle, she’d have your ears on the outer wall for decoration.”
    Gurney pulled at his left ear. “Poor decoration, too, they having been bruised so much listening at keyholes while a young lad I know practiced some strange ditties on his baliset.”
    â€œSo you’ve forgotten what it’s like to find sand in your bed,” Paul said. He pulled a shield belt from the table, buckled it fast around his waist. “Then, let’s fight!”
    Halleck’s eyes went wide in mock surprise. “So! It was your wicked hand did that deed! Guard yourself today, young master—guard yourself.” He grabbed up a rapier, laced the air with it. “I’m a hellfiend out for revenge!”
    Paul lifted the companion rapier, bent it in his hands, stood in the aguile, one foot forward. He let his