Uxtal

Uxtal was a Lost Tleilaxu scribe who served as an assistant to the Elder Burah in Bandalong, on the planet Tleilax. He was the lone non-Enhanced survivor permitted to live by the Honored Matres leader Hellica and the Enhanced Face Dancer leader Khrone after their purge of the Tleilaxu leadership. Kept alive only for his command of the Bene Tleilax axlotl tanks, he was passed between masters who held his life hostage and forced him to grow a succession of gholas, before meeting a wretched end near Bandalong.

Slave to Khrone#

Uxtal was present when Khrone and his Enhanced Face Dancers ended the pretense of obeying the Tleilaxu leadership in Bandalong, killing the Tleilaxu elders as the Great Enemy moved against humankind. Khrone kept Uxtal alive on the condition that he perform exactly as commanded. The Face Dancer first demanded a ghola grown from the cells of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, though he never explained why.

After the Baron's ghola was created, Khrone took Uxtal to the ocean world Dan, to a shrine dedicated to Paul Atreides hidden deep in its wilderness. There they questioned the shrine's keeper, Ardeth, who confirmed it held the Emperor's Blade, stained with Paul's blood. Khrone killed her for it. Returning to Bandalong, Uxtal grew a ghola of Atreides, whom Khrone named Paolo. Once the ghola reached the age of one year, Khrone took both Vladimir and Paolo away to Caladan, to advance the Outside Enemy's plan to create the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach.

The Waff ghola#

For this work Hellica assigned Uxtal one of her assistants, Ingva, who pressed him constantly to produce more amal, the artificial substitute for melange to which the Honored Matres were addicted. Hellica also demanded that he produce true melange in his axlotl tanks. When the Guild Navigator Edrik visited Tleilax, Uxtal admitted to both Hellica and Edrik that he lacked the knowledge to create the spice, and that only a ghola of a Tleilaxu Master could hold that secret.

Hellica led him into the sub-basements beneath the administrative center of Bandalong and showed him a roomful of emaciated Tleilaxu Masters, the Tylwyth Waffs, hooked to crude milking machines. They agreed that Uxtal could grow Waff gholas under accelerated procedures. Eight were created and raised together at speed, and as they matured they repeatedly tried to outwit Uxtal into freeing them. Years later, when Edrik returned, Hellica ordered Ingva to kill the Waff gholas one after another until the stress triggered the buried memories of the dead Master in a survivor. After seven of the eight were killed, the last had his memories partially restored, and his life was spared.

Enslavement and death#

To secure her position and bind Uxtal to her permanently, Ingva resolved to sexually enslave him. Though she discovered he was a eunuch, the scribe was still held captive by her conditioning. Soon afterward the New Sisterhood, led by its Valkyrie units under Kiria and Janess Idaho, launched a secret assault inside Bandalong, while Bashar Wikki Aztin attacked from above and destroyed the Honored Matres' defensive ships. Driven by his bondage to Ingva, Uxtal took up a weapon and joined the fighting, but the Valkyries had no use for him and cast him aside. He glimpsed the Waff ghola and urged him to flee the central compound just before it exploded, but the two were separated as the young ghola escaped toward the spaceport. Finding the half-dead Ingva in the rubble, demanding to be freed, Uxtal instead stepped on her windpipe until she died, releasing himself from her at last.

Uxtal then took refuge in the rural land around Bandalong, hiding in the barn of a slig farmer named Gaxhar, beneath the feeding trough of the half-slug, half-pig creatures. When feeding time came, Gaxhar overfilled the trough and slopped feed everywhere, and some of it landed on Uxtal. The ravenous sligs found him and tore him apart. That night Gaxhar killed the slig that had devoured him, and made a meal of the creature.