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"I DON'T BELIEVE IN the lisan al gaib, but I give you this in a symbol of honour." Chani says, outstretching her palm, granting the boy access to the weapon in her priority. He still speaks no words.
"It was passed to me by my great aunt. The blade is carved from the tooth of the great Shai Hulud. It would be an honour, for you to die holding it."
He looks down at the blade as she unsheathes it from the leather. It's a firm spike, sanded down to an even firmer point. A gradient of brown to beige runs through it, lacing up the sides of it seamlessly - darker where the handle starts, and lightest at the tip. It's beautiful.
He takes it from her gently, grazing the blade with one hand.
"Careful. It's sharp. You wouldn't want to cut sacred hand, now would you?" She adds, sarcastically.
"Thank you." He simply replies, before glancing back to where I sit, talking with Stilgar. I can't hear anything of their conversation, but my eyes are trained on the two of them intently. Taken, this boy had to be less intelligent than I'd garnered. In my dreams, he seemed he knew something no one else did. Now, today in the sands of our own time, he looked like a frail desert mouse - scouring the grains below him for scraps.
But as I look to him further, I can see his face, in my head. I can see his outstretched palm, sapping with blood - and I can feel the tooth in my hand, resting so calmly as if it had always meant to be there. This was not one of my dreams. I was seeing his.
"Don't look at her." Chani snaps protectively, and he whips his head back to her full attention. I blink, and go back to meet Stilgar's admiring gaze, though both me and the boy are still lingering on the forefront of our own paired thoughts.
"He's been challenged, there's nothing we can do."
"He'll die." I say so confidently. Stilgar shakes his head, to my surprise.
"He may not. I know what they name him." Stilgar tells me.
"Stop it with that." I snap. A silence grows between us as we sit and part with my words. "He's mousy. Scrawny. He cannot fight like us, I won't believe it."
"He does not need skill, maqbara. He needs time."
I am not known to be the lonely fedykin that might go against Stilgar's word. I trust him, I have trusted him, and I know I shall continue to. So how is it, that I have come to doubt his truths?
"Well, he does not have it." I state faithfully.
Jammis is strong and unbelievably fast. I couldn't say anything about his intelligence - he's often imminent and impatient - but we need him. I know it. Not that I believe the boy might win, or that I want him to, but in some ways, I think I already know what's to happen.
