Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly DK. Further references: HA.RAH; STILGAR, Harah, Memoirs of a Sietch Woman, tr Steewan Duunalazan (Topaz. Carolus UP); Princess Irulan Atreides-Corrino, Songs of Muad'Dib, ed. J Ruuverada Gabryel (Chusuk. Salrejma), Stilgar ben Fifrawi, The Stilgar Chronicle, tr Mityau Gwulador, Airakis Studies 5 (Grumman. United Worlds) KANLY. A formal and highly ritualized feud or vendetta declared between two Houses Major, The rules of kanly were laid down in the Great Convention, primarily with the purpose of sparing the innocent bystanders who might otherwise be slaughtered in a House-to-House confrontation. This regulation was considered important enough by the ftamers of the Convention to warrant its being detailed in twenty-five pages in the original manuscript; those interested m leading die exhaustive listings of the minutiae of UK ritual may consult Section XXIV of that document. A broad sketch of the rules of kanly will be given here. Kanly could be declared only by the acting, titular head of a Great House Any person presenting such a declaration was required to notify the Landsraad High Council and the Imperial Court, as well as the head of the House declared against, so that a Judge of the Rite could be appointed to supervise the kanly negotiations. Once such a Judge- authorized by both Council and emperor- was appointed, the opposing parties and their immediate families could open negotiations. No outside observers, apart from the Judge, were allowed to witness these proceedings. The negotiations could take several forms. If neither party was willing to consider any other way of reconciling the differences, the "negotiation" consisted of a personal com- 357 KRIMSKEL FIBER bat with knives only, unshielded, to the death Even the combat was stylized with certain phrases being employed on each side to call the other out When one or both of the combatants had died, the option of either withdrawing the kanly or reopening negotia tions was left to the heirts) It was not completely unknown, in particularly bitter kanly, for all the possible heirs to a line to be wiped out When this occurred, the Judge of the Rite was empowered to declare the House ended, put its remaining members wider Imperial protection, and redistribute its assets It should be noted that the victorious House was allowed only a small portion of those assets (This parsimony helped keep the kanly proceedings from becoming a popular, and profitable, way of doing business ) A much larger share was allotted to the Crown, ostensibly to be earmarked for die" support of the losing House's survivors If the combat were aot chosen, kanly could be settled by the challenged House's agreement to meet certain terms set by the declaring House Such terms most often in eluded the transfer of a fief, and of large amounts of CHOAM holdings or other valuables, occasionally, the demand was made for permission to many into the declared-against House, with the obvious intent of an eventual takeover For a number of reasons-(he violent climate of the times not least among them-the settlement approach was seldom used Kanly, except for those Houses too weakened or sparse of heirs to face the personal combat, was chiefly settled by the blade One other solution, rarely invoked, also existed the Judge's Ban When a Judge of the Rite, acting either as an individual or as a messenger from the emperor or Council, decided that a particular act of kanly was detrimental to the Impermm as a whole, a Ban could be laid on both Houses Until such time as the Ban was lifted, the House whose members acted against the other could be declared guilty of treason, stripped of all its holdings, and outlawed In the face of such possible consequences, all but the most stubborn wishes for combat faded, the Ban was a most effective deterrent Historically* some of the best-known m stances of kanly include House Gmaz vs House Sheay (Ginaz won the fief later lost to House Montam in a War of Assassins), 6723, House Alcxm vs House Maros (only known case of both Houses ending as a result of personal combat), 8796 and House Harkonnen vs House Atreides (invoked by Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen against Paul Atreides in the presence of Shaddam IV the sole case of an emperor acting as his own Judge of the Rite), 10193 C W Further references GREAT CONVENT ON HARKONNEN FEYD-RAUTHA KOMOS.