How It All Goes Down
- As with so many chapters before, we start with a character waking up. It's Jessica this time, and she awakens to find Stilgar and Jamis verbally going toe-to-toe.
- Jamis doesn't trust Jessica and wants to challenge her champion, Paul, to single combat to test the legend. Both Jessica and Stilgar try to talk Jamis out of it, but his ego's still a tad bruised from Paul disarming him last night.
- Jessica tries to use the Voice to coax him out of it, but Jamis invokes silence on her. Jessica can't utter a word. What? A Bene Gesserit not being able to use her powers to solve the problem at hand? Say it isn't so.
- Jamie and Paul step into the Fremen version of the Octagon. Only there is no ring, and they use knives, and cauliflower ear is the least of your worries.
- Paul's mind sums up all the lessons he was taught by Gurney and Idaho. He also remembers Chani's warnings of Jamis's fighting style. He also remembers that little vision from yesterday. You know, the one where he dies via knife implant.
- Paul and Jamis do the dance of knives. Paul is quick on the defense, but he can't land a hit on Jamis because of his slow attack. Jessica understands this to be a side effect of being taught to fight with shields his whole life, but Stilgar and the other Fremen think Paul toys with Jamis.
- Paul lands a hit on Jamis's hand and asks him to yield. Stilgar informs Paul that yielding is forbidden. Do or die. Uh, so cauliflower ear really is the least of your concerns.
- Jamis grows desperate and strikes. Paul plants his knife into Jamis's chest and wins.
- A flurry of activity follows, and the Fremen whisk Jamis's body away to be rendered for water.
- Jessica asks her son how it feels to be a killer. Wait, didn't he already kill that Czigo guy on the ornithopter? Guess he doesn't count.
- Stilgar is surprised to hear this is Paul's first (second!) kill.
- In keeping with tradition, Stilgar bestows Fremen names on Paul. He is given the sietch name Usul, a name only those of Sietch Tabr may use.
- Paul chooses his other Fremen name to be the same as the little mouse he saw in the desert garden. Stilgar agrees it is a good name. The name is… you guessed it, Muad'Dib.
- Paul asks to have his first name attached to his Fremen name, so that he can carry part of his father's legacy with him. Stilgar agrees, naming him Paul-Muad'Dib.
- Paul realizes that by adding the name Paul to Muad'Dib, he changed the future slightly. Hey, if you're going to try and change the future of the entire universe, it's best to start with baby steps.
- Stilgar wants Chani to find Paul some better fitting nose plugs, and Jessica offers their literjons of water to the tribe.
- Stilgar orders Jamis to be given full burial rites.
- Paul realizes he has plunged into the futureless abyss again. Here's hoping he can change that whole universal jihad vision he had earlier.