Arrakis, the desert planet called Dune, has been the site of terrible war and the source of a merciless holy crusade that swept the universe. All this has been the result of the ascension to absolute power of the man known as Muad'dib.
Twelve years after the beginning of the Fremen Jihad and his ascension to the Imperial Throne, Paul Atreides faces a plot between three of the most powerful factions in the universe: The Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Tleilaxu. The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam and the Princess Irulan plot against the Imperial concubine, Chani; the Tleilaxu and Guild attack the Emperor's moral side by giving him a ghola, Duncan Idaho back from the dead with no memory of his past life. But this ghola has an additional value: the ability to distract the young sister of the Emperor, St. Alia of the Knife.