The Golden Path is the way to preserve humanity, to eliminate "abomination" and "possession" but the choice was so difficult, and he still suffers from it. I worry about his growing attachment to that old Harum of his. Cham says he's one of the benign, but Leto is becoming more dependent on him than on Father. Only Farad'n seems to understand why I worry so about Leto. During the early years of his transformation, Ghanima was the only person who could give Leto the love and compassion he so desperately needed, the only one who could empathize with him as he gradually lost the ATREIDES GHANIMA 55 ATREIDES HOUSE sensations of his human body and also lost the ability to communicate emotion through touch As when they were young, Ghanima again spent many nights sitting with him in his tower In Volume Two of The Book of Ghanima Elaine tells of seeing her mother and Leto '"Hie two of them would sit like statues in the darkness, quietly talking in their secret languages In the morning moth er would be emotionally exhausted She tiled to make me understand what it is> hke to be Leto, now unable to touch her or to be touched because his skin is so sensitive Touching is so important That must be why she and father still sit together for hours like young lovers' * Ghanima expressed her own feelings about her two "men" in a poem found m the Commentaries to the Voices Love Eternal-twice have I The first a sturdy ship afioat Across the tides of time- The second a fragik passion flower Whose essence never dies Both golden-precious, One will richness to the other bring Between the two drift I Forever Love hes m remembering When Ghanima finally decided to join her ancestors, it was because she had tired of living Farad'u has been gone so long, and the children's children are having children of then own Leto still wants me with him, but we seem to have less and less to speak of I still believe in his Golden Path-it is the only nght way-but he has grown so cold about it ail At times it s almost as though my Leto had gone replaced by an entity I don't really know He speaks to me of truth, bat sometimes all I hear is his ambition So much death seems to be the center of his plans-being a living god must change one Now I know what my dear Farad'n meant when he said he was bred The world around me has become Leto's creation, and I am no longer a necessary part of it I DOW will discov er what my mother already knows, what it feels like to be submerged m someone else's con sciousness That part is a bit frightening, but it will be bettor than my present bfe At her death, Leto declared a period of Imperial mournmg, and from the urn holding her water, he caused the voices of the Atreides to speak, convincing the multitude of his godhead But his final words at the end of Volume Three of The Book of Ghanima show his love and his longing for Ghanima My sister/wife Ghani-my other soul-the freshness I have always been too old to have- how I will miss your daily visits Without you here beside me I have little to remind me of our youth when I was truly human As this new body tightens around me, the piercing emotions you kept alive in me are beginning to fade You will be a part of me always-we will live together in a closeness no other two can ever feel-but I do long for one more glimpse of those steady blue eyes in your sweet, tender face Sleep well, my beloved J A C Further references HARQ AL ADA CORRINO IRU LAN Gwenemera Apluros Home Life of the God Em peror (Tleilax Mental) Ghanima Atreides Commen twies to the Voices Rakis Ref Cat 37 BG132 Ghanima Elaine and Leto Alreides The Book of Ghanima Rakis Ref Cat 13 A 700 Leto Atreides II Journal vol III Bene Cement Special Reports File no A G 20368 20375 Lors Karden Truth and Fancy m the Oral History (Yorba Rose) ATREIDES.