DIRK-2
Recording P-003 [Transcriber’s Note: Most pauses, mis-speaks, mispronunciations, and occurrences of “uh,” “um,” and “you know” have been edited out.]
Dirk: Today we’re going to talk about the House of Leopard. Is that all right?
Rowan: [Nods]
Dirk: Remember about all the Houses of Lenima?
Rowan: Yes.
Dirk: I should mention that not everybody is a member of a House.
Rowan: Like me!
Dirk: Yeah, like you; but you can become a member. You don’t have to be born into a House. Jayenne will adopt you into House of Falcon if you want.
Rowan: [Shrugs]
Dirk: Well, anyway, there’s the hill people, of course, and hermits, and some people who are just anti-organization, you know. Most people around here are at least nominally members of some House or another. They don’t all live in compounds like House of Dog, here, or tight-knit clusters of homes. There’s farmsteads, for example. If you go south of here a half day’s walk or so, less than that if you go steadily, there’s a whole bunch of farms, just side by side by side. But they’re all mixed up. The first one is a House of Horse farm, then the next one might be House of Mouse, I can’t remember, and then House of Beaver, and then another House of Horse, a couple House of Dallidoes, then a couple more House of Horses. Like that.
Rowan: Can I have some? [Points at some maple marbs that Dirk has in a bowl beside him]
Dirk: [Slides the bowl towards Rowan] So, what can you tell me about the House of Leopard?
Rowan: You want to be a Leopard.
Dirk: Why would you say that?
Rowan: [Shrugs, smiling]
Dirk: Come on!
Rowan: We’re always pretending to be them—when we’re playing. To be Leopards.
Dirk: That’s true, but that’s because we’re pretending to be heroes. And around here, the heroes are Leopards. But you could be a hero without being a Leopard. If I had my druthers, I’d rather be a great wizard, like my brother Ralgo—he’s dead, but he was a great wizard—but unfortunately, I don’t seem to have any magic in me. Don’t seem to—you never know, it might manifest later.
Rowan: [Nods doubtfully]
Dirk: It might!
Rowan: What’s a hero?
Dirk: Somebody who beats the shit out of people who are mean to others or who try to enslave or otherwise control them…But getting back on topic, here, what else do you know about the House of Leopard?
Rowan: They’re the bosses.
Dirk: [Chuckles] You’re on the right track, but no, they’re not the bosses.
Rowan: The lords?
Dirk: No, they’re not lords, either.
Rowan: They wear orange and black uniforms.
Dirk: That’s right, or sometimes yellow and black. They’re not bosses, though, and not lords. They’re sort of, hm, what would be a good word? Unifiers.
Rowan: Huh?
Dirk: For generations, there was constant petty fighting between Houses, sometimes pretty much out and out war, one House against another, or an alliance of several Houses against another House or a different alliance of Houses. The peace and strife went in waves, depending on the leadership of Houses, the results of conflicts, the year’s or the decade’s harvest, and I’m sure many other factors.
Rowan: Magic?
Dirk: Yes, that’s probably true. If a strong wizard was born into a particular House, that House might decide they could exert some influence in their region of Lenima, or something like that. Or if some leader had built up a House’s militia—anyway, many many factors.
Rowan: [Nods]
Dirk: But in times of strife, all of this fighting between Houses would leave Lenima vulnerable to Narian invasion. They—the Houses, Lenima—always seemed to pull together just enough and just in time to fight off the Narians, and then there’d be relative peace for awhile, before the disagreements and disputes started up again. But then, about two hundred years ago, a Leniman traitor from the House of Salamander, who styled himself, “The Shark,” went over to the Narians. He led them into Lenima, and started defeating House after House after House.
Rowan: Salamander?
Dirk: Yeah, it’s not a House anymore. They were, if I remember right, a somewhat reclusive House anyway, what’s the word, not incestual exactly, but they kept to themselves, they were self-contained, they had no dealings with other Houses, they didn’t marry outside of the House, stuff like that. And they had a unique appearance, dark-skinned, but light-eyed, green or blue, with gray in their hair even when they were young—like you, sort of. After the war, they never re-formed, though. Maybe they were all killed.
Rowan: Oh.
Dirk: So anyway, the Shark almost won. I mean, for a couple of years, he never lost a single battle, despite often being out-numbered two or three to one; and he was brutal. He would torture and slaughter whole strongholds of a House down to the last person, so that other strongholds would capitulate without a battle, stuff like that. He was on the verge of winning, of beating Lenima, of conquering the entire continent! But William Green Eagle, “The Shakis,” as he came to be known, led a ragged, rowdy army out of the northern hills, and started winning battles against Shark regiments. In time, he united the Houses and under his leadership, they beat the Shark. The legends say that Green Eagle killed him in single combat after decimating his armies.
Rowan: And he started the House of Leopard!
Dirk: That’s right. There was an aura of magic about him. I mean, the Shark had beaten all the disciplined militias of all the major houses, Tiger, Wolf, Jaguar, the Underworld, you name it, and not just beaten them, but devastated them, dominated them; then, this undisciplined bunch of mountain men came down and started holding their own against him—and then when the Houses yielded command of their militias to William Green Eagle, they started beating him decisively. Well, they—the Houses—thought of him as a savior—a Shakis. And I guess he was. And this gave him the influence to form a new and different House, the House of Leopard, which would settle disputes between the Houses, keep the peace, and of course, maintain a standing army in case of future invasions.
Rowan: So they are the bosses.
Dirk: No, not exactly. They don’t make laws, they don’t…
Rowan: But what they say, the other Houses have to do, right?
Dirk: No, not even that. If there’s a dispute between Houses, they, the House of Leopard, make a suggestion, and almost always, the Houses go along with it. They have quite a reputation for fairness. All the Houses feel safer with the House of Leopard defending the borders, too, that’s a factor. I mean, you ought to see these guys! One Leopard, with a sword, could probably take twenty or thirty militia men. The training they go through must be mind-boggling. There was a Leopard who lived here, over at House of Whale. Krallum; he joined the House of Leopard a few years ago; and he’s moving up the ranks, I hear. He’s good friends with Jayenne, and…
Rowan: How do they…
Dirk: Fund the army? It’s partly taxes, I think voluntary though, and partly there’s an agricultural wing of the House of Leopard, and an industrial wing also, which partly fund the central military component.
Rowan: You like them?
Dirk: Who? The House of Leopard?
Rowan: Yes.
Dirk: Well, yeah, as far as authoritarian-esque organizations go, they seem pretty okay. Of course, it could all be propaganda, but Krallum’s a nice guy, and I’ve seen a couple other Leopard warriors, and they’re always friendly to everybody.
[Silence]
Dirk: You know what I think?
Rowan: What?
Dirk: The history books won’t tell you this, but I think it’s true.
Rowan: What?
Dirk: I’ve read all about the Shark War, and even if the Shark was a great general, and even if the Houses were unprepared and disorganized because of all the strife between them at the time, there was no way he could have won every battle. He was too outnumbered, especially at first. If you read the descriptions of those battles, it was as if he was three steps ahead of everybody else—it’s as if he knew exactly what everybody was going to do, always. It’s been attributed to his genius, but nobody’s that smart. I submit that he actually did know what was going to happen. I think he could see the future. Like you. It’s always gnawed at me, how could he possibly have foreseen exactly what all his opponents would do? And now that I’ve seen, in the person of you, that it’s possible for the future to be seen, I’m convinced that he could—that he could tell the future.
Rowan: [Looks thoughtful; seems intrigued by the possibility that somebody else might be able to do what he does]
Dirk: And you know how I think the Shakis defeated him?
Rowan: How?
Dirk: I think the Shakis didn’t have a future.
Rowan: What?
Dirk: I think he lived utterly in the present, and so had no fu-ture.
Rowan: [Thinking]
End recording.