DUNE-A False Haderach (OC X Shishakli) (OC x Alia)

Part 18

Chapter 10a

~Two Years before the start of DUNE~

SHADDAM CORRINO IV- The Padishah Emperor

Power was an illusion. By the word of man and common acceptance, he was the most powerful man in the Imperium, and in some ways, he truly was. He ruled over Kaitain, and Salusa Secundus had the might of the infallible Sardaukar at his back. He had wealth, a considerable stake in the CHOAM company, and much more.

Yet that was all an illusion. He had risen to the throne by treachery, poisoning his own father to do so. He had been caught in the act by other forces, forces that only let him ascend for their own purposes.

The Guild wished for Spice. Their operations depended on the melange, and their navigators were now long addicted to the brown powder of mystery, and he had agreed, not that he had any intention of stopping the mining of the important and mystifying resource.

And then were the Bene Gesserit, the loathed order of women, secretive in their operations with plots with their plots. They occupied, controlled, and had influence over nearly every House in the Imperium, claiming only ever to serve the 'Greater Good' yet Shaddam knew it all to be a lie.

They had demanded a marriage, and so he had ended up marrying Lady Anirul Corrino, plotting, promising himself revenge against these powers once he had an heir of his own, an heir that could be used to bring together allies, like-minded houses as he showed them all the true might of House Corrino and the Empire.

But such a destiny would elude him. After more than a decade and a half of marriage, he would be blessed with only daughters—five of them—yet no son, no heir, no prince to wed, to inherit his throne, no opportunity for the alliance he so desperately needed. This was the crux of his frustration, the catalyst for his plans for revenge and alliances.

And he would never come, the Imperial doctor having confirmed his impotency years ago now, as he sat in his solar on Kaitain, surrounded by only darkness, only the glimmer of the screen infront of him. The weight of his impotency, the crushing reality of his inability to produce a male heir, bore down on him, a constant reminder of his failure.

The screen had a picture, a shoddy image, of a planet he had never yet set foot on. Arrakis was a desert wasteland of little value except that it held the precious Melange that was at the centre of the Imperium and the Landsraad.

The planet had been governed by House Harkonen, a House famous for its treachery and hate of House Atreides. The Harkonens had grown wealthy because of their position and had grown in influence, for Baron Vladimir Harkonen was a shrewd, if not an honorable, man who had put the wealth he had obtained to good use.

"So it is true," he spoke to the figure lingering in the shadows, the man who had grown up with him, his only true confidante. Count Hasimir Fenring, stepped forward, the man was the most skilled assassin in the Imperium and had helped him poison his own father.

"It is. House Harkonen has been taking some considerable losses on Arrakis from this individual. He has been harassing their supply lines, and has even attacked the city a few times," he confirmed as Shaddam's eyes narrowed on the person in the picture. He was tall and dressed as those wretched Fremen, yet his eyes weren't Fremen.

The desert dwellers had blue eyes, the color of which came from exposure to spice. Yet this person had eyes of green, at least what he could tell from the picture.

And the most disturbing thing about him wasn't those eyes. No, it was the symbol stitched into his back, a sigil of sorts, one that was quite familiar. A pair of wings interspersed on one another.