[Writing] The Narrow Path, or, Didn't Frank Herbert Cover This?
This setting really seems like it could be interesting if I worked on it...then again maybe not. I like the feel of it, anyway.
Jehyra, forever greatest of the Sisters, answered the summons of Mother Senem.
"The King has sent for you, as we expected." Sisters bowed their heads at the Mother's voice. She always had her attendants, but they were as so many extra pillars in the great audience room.
Jehyra looked to the scroll on the table by the Mother's hand, then back to the aged woman's face.
"You will not go," said Mother Sennem.
"Why?"
That word was more than a Sister's life was worth, but Jehyra had undergone many trials already, and she was yet necessary for the success of the Narrow Way. "You know why," said Sennem. "The time is not yet ripe. Your line must not rise yet."
"I have sacrificed much already."
"You are sworn body and soul to the Sisterhood. The Narrow Way requires your all. I am sorry that he loves you, but we cannot change what must be."
"What you say must be."
The room dimmed. "You will stay within these walls and you will await the appointed time, and the appointed man. Forget Nymet. He will pass, as all things must." She did not Compel, for Compelling a Sister must inevitably lead to battle. Instead she spoke and appealed to the mission that had governed Jehyra since her very conception. "When the world passes, too, we must save the remnant. That is what must be."
Jehyra threw light about her. "I will go. The Narrow Way will change with me, or it will pass, as all things must."
Mother Sennem rose to her feet. "I cannot break you, for there may yet be a way through your foolishness; but I say to you, that you will never bear Nymet's son."
"And I say to you, Mother, that those are the first wholly false words you have ever spoken."
"When the world is broken and the old ways forgotten, they will yet remember your name and your betrayal."
"They will remember my love also."
Jehyra turned and left. Mother Sennem could not stop her, for the sister's will was greater than the Mother's age and wisdom and cunning. And Jehyra went to Nymet the king.
And that, they say, is how the world fell from the Narrow Path. Because of this the old line rose too soon, and the Son was born out of time; and many of the Signs were broken and had to be read anew, for the Sisterhood had not foreseen Jehyra's rebellion. So in the rending of the world, the Son did not have the weapons or the allies of a thousand years' preparation; and yet, some who now read what remains of the Signs say that only this way was the world saved.