Chapter 4

“Fear and power, power and fear—these became the Baron’s most trusted tools.” – Dune Encyclopaedia

The city was a furnace, its breath acrid with soot and its skin a lattice of blackened steel. Barony, heart of Giedi Prime, was less a city than a wound upon the planet’s surface. The furnaces never slept. Sparks fell like malignant stars into alleys where gaunt workers huddled in hovels welded to the very factories that consumed their lives. At night, the glow of industry drowned the heavens, and by day the smog sealed them off entirely.

This place is an experiment in cruelty, Lady Kleya Varmoth thought as she stood at the high windows of the Harkonnen residence. The Bene Gesserit training in her bones made her still, but the currents of her mind seethed. An entire world conditioned to obedience by the weight of filth and hunger. And in this crucible, the Baron sits as god of pain.

Next to her, Takshaka Vahal adjusted the clasp of his blade harness. The Captain of the Guard wore caution like armour, each thought measured against the possibility of betrayal. His voice, when it came, was low and gravelly, the voice of a man who had watched too many ambushes unfold.

“Either the Harkonnens have lost control of their city,” he said, “or they mean us to bleed in it. Neither choice speaks well of our hosts.”

Count Lucar Varmoth stood apart, his hand resting lightly on the pommel of his kinjal. To others it might seem a gesture of vanity, but in Lucar’s mind it was both reassurance and promise. He smiled faintly—charming, even oddly disarming, but his eyes betrayed something darker.

“My father’s death was no accident,” Lucar murmured. “I know now it was sabotage. Murder, cloaked in smoke. And if it was murder, then there is blood-debt. I will not leave this place without a reckoning.”

Lavro, their Mentat, observed in silence, eyes half-closed. His mind clicked and turned like a machine of flesh, compiling, ordering, deducing. Finally, he said: “Actions are measurable by their consequence. Someone intends us to find patterns, to walk the steps they lay before us. We must ask: whose game are we playing?”

The room fell into stillness, save for the faint wheeze of the palace’s air recyclers. The memory of the previous night lingered still: the suicide bomber in the arena, the red-haired stranger with whispered promises of truth. All paths now led to the Fourth Forge-Ward.

Hassan Diago kept close to Takshaka’s side. The loyal servant wore his purpose in every careful movement, his eyes darting with the keenness of a man measuring opportunity. He watched the crowds as though he were already a spy, cataloguing faces and movements, studying the rhythm of fear.

The journey outward from the Harkonnen residence was a descent into another world. Conveyors rattled, trams shrieked along their rails. The noble districts, polished and surveilled, gave way to zones where filth was mortar and smoke the only sky.

Taking a detour via a notorious bar as an alibi and to shake off any tails. The pair finally appraised the Fourth Forge-Ward gates, which loomed like the jaws of a predator—steel teeth locked against the crowd of workers awaiting their shift. The heat from within was a palpable thing, a living tide of fire. Harkonnen guards watched lazily from towers, their weapons angled down not at any specific soul but at the concept of disobedience itself.

Suddenly an ear-piercing electronic tone split the air, the gates opened and humanity surged forward like molten ore into the veins of the ward. There, among the soot-blackened tide, a red-haired figure gestured to Takshaka and Hassan ever so slightly. No words were needed. He turned and vanished into the smoke, expecting to be followed.

Takshaka touched his kinjal.
“Trap,” he muttered.
“Truth is often hidden inside traps,” Hassan replied. He did not raise his hood, though the air stung his eyes. “We must walk this one.”

The alleys swallowed them whole. Pipes dripped with foul condensate. The walls bore rusted scars. Groups of desperate men and women stirred from shadows with menace in their eyes, yet each time the red-haired guide flashed his maula pistol or they got sight of Takshaka’s blade, they melted back into the gloom.

At last, their red-haired guide gestured to a doorway leading to believe street level and then he disappeared. Takshaka took the lead with Hassan following close behind, as they descended into a damp basement, a room of crates and rotting cots. A woman sat waiting—Selm. Her eyes, rimmed with fatigue, darted nervously. She asked no questions of their House or purpose; she asked only one thing.
“Safe passage,” she whispered. “Offworld. Freedom. Give me this, and I give you truth.”

Takshaka’s eyes narrowed, calculating risks. Hassan leaned forward, almost eager, sensing this was his moment to serve with distinction.

But truth is jealous of its secrets. The dart came without warning, slicing the air with a faint whine. Selm’s body jolted, her words dying as a steel spike entered her skull. She collapsed across the crate. Her lips trembled with her last breath. Harkonnen? Hassan fixed the shape of her dying syllables in memory to relay to Lavro later.

Takshaka’s instincts flared. He struck the wall, bursting through plaster and grime, finding a hidden alcove. Inside: a woman fumbling with a pill. Her wrists snapped beneath his grasp. She gasped in pain, then despair.
“My family will starve without this,” she pleaded. “If I die, they are paid. Do you not understand? Let me die.”

Her name was Orana, another worker chained by invisible strings. She confessed to blackmail, to an unseen and unnamed employer. She begged for mercy.

Takshaka’s mercy was swift and bloody.

When her body fell silent, he turned her communications device upon itself. He wrote a single message: “I have f…”, followed by, a couple of minutes later: “You have failed.” The reply simply: “???”.

Meanwhile, in Barony’s most infamous casino, Count Lucar, Kleya and Lavro played another game. The casino was a hive of decadence, where nobles and criminals mingled in the smoky air, their laughter brittle, their wagers steep.

Lucar drank Ixian liquor, hallucinations trembling at the edges of his vision. The walls rippled like water, but he held his posture proudly, his charm weaponised. Lady Kleya watched with cold eyes, unaffected due to her Bene Gesserit trained body, while Lavro noted every shift of tone, every glance, recording data like scripture.

They spotted a Harkonnen noble at the blackjack table, ostentatiously drunk and being taken advantage of by criminals who were slipping his casino chips into their pockets when he wasn’t looking. He introduced himself as Alexzander Harkonnen, a cousin of Baron Harkonnen. Smooth in his treachery, he invited the party to a well-guarded back room and under the secrecy of a cone of silence, he told of the Baron’s obsession with Arrakis, of the shame it brought to their House. He spoke of humiliation, of replacement, of power rebalanced. Alexzander made an offer to Count Varmoth: deal with a minor pest, Vassily Harkonnen, and I will assist House Varmoth.

And when the time came, Lucar delivered an insult like a blade. Vassily, the brute cousin who thought himself a gladiator, fell swiftly beneath his kinjal. Lucar’s laughter was sharp, his words cutting: “He drew a blade first.”

The crowd recoiled. In that moment, House Varmoth was no longer an outsider but a predator and an ally, and Alexzander Harkonnen nodded approval from afar.

The party left the casino swiftly. Outside, the city burned with unrest. A young woman’s plea for help came as she grabbed Count Lucar out of the crowd. Takshaka seized her, his voice echoing: “An attack on Count Varmoth is an attack on our House! We demand justice!”

The crowd erupted. Workers wrestled lasguns from guards, fire lighting the night. From the tumult rose a broad-shouldered man, scarred, carrying defiance like a weapon. He and his rebels drew the House Varmoth away from the crowd. The party was offered to be blindfolded and taken somewhere where they could talk. Accepting this, Lavro took steps to ensure that their footsteps could be retraced, using all his Mentat senses to create a mental map.

Once away from the chaos of the riot, Hondo Marsh offered Count Varmoth a deal, a promise of proof of Count Leopold’s murder in exchange for a delivery of a package to the Baron’s private box. A mission that could only be completed by nobles of House Varmoth’s stature.

Count Varmoth and his entourage retired to their suite in the Harkonnen residence to contemplate their next move. Soon after, they were visited by Piter de Vries, who enquired as to whether they had enjoyed their day exploring all the delights Barony had to offer.

The next day, after their noontime meal, an unfamiliar servant arrived to clean the Count’s sleeping quarters, and on her departure, a package was discovered with a message: “Leave package in Harkonnen viewing box tonight.”

Lavro carefully examined the metal case. His mind laid it bare: a bomb, remote-triggered, its silence more dangerous than its noise.

Still, the bargain had been struck. Hassan planted it with precision on the outside of the Harkonnen box, unseen, using the crowd as cover.

The party visited the spectacular Giedi Prime arena again that night as guests of Baron Harkonnen. The night was uneventful apart from the execution of some of the workers involved in the previous day’s riots, their faces etched in Lavro’s flawless memory.

The next morning, the explosion came too late after the festivities, only damaging the Baron’s private box with no casualties.

Piter visited the party again, his smile serpent-thin when he accused Count Varmoth in veiled words.

Baron Vladimir himself confronted them, his massive form suspended in grotesque grace. His voice oozed contempt.
“You are near my enemies. Perhaps you are my enemies.”

Takshaka answered with boldness. “Perhaps it is Count Varmoth who is the target. If your House cannot guarantee our safety, we will leave.”

The Baron’s sneer was wet and cruel. “Yes. Perhaps you should.”

Hassan attempted to contact the resistance, but they had melted away, as if they had never been. Promises of proof were smoke. Hondo Marsh was a ghost.

But Karra—an old woman plucked from the filth to wear the mask of Selm—was smuggled aboard their ship. A single life redeemed. Perhaps a seed planted.

As the Heighliner bore them away from Giedi Prime, the furnaces of Barony faded into the dark. Eighteen days to Arrakis. Eighteen days to think about vengeance.

Lady Kleya folded her hands in silence. Lavro computed futures. Takshaka sharpened his blade. Hassan dreamed of proving himself. Lucar stared into the stars and saw in them only opportunity for blood.

The Baron remains, Kleya thought. And he plays a longer game than even we suspect.

The Heighliner drifted, impossibly massive, impossibly silent, through the void. Behind them lay the furnaces of Giedi Prime. Ahead waited the deserts of Arrakis. The stars outside were cold, unfeeling witnesses.