Dark Dynasty

“Life rises when night comes down”, used to say rowdy sailors and seafaring costumers brought in Port Tantor for business or pleasures. Trade centers tend to be at their most noisy, dangerous and exciting when sun set and dive deep below the horizon, bringing with him some the duties and worries that plagues men during the day. Other dangers and worries come in their place, brought forth by the sweet scent of unabashed freedom, and made much more alluring by rivers of money and alcohol and prostitutes flowing under the lamps of taverns and brothels. Friends are found and lost, money is gained and squandered, lives are bet and traded all in the span of breath, by the launch of a dime or a glance given to the right or wrong people. Risks only were granted to the stupid or the audacious; the wheels of fortune would dictate the rest.

Dr. Weil hated both noises and jeopardies. The Unseen Princeps recognized the need most men had for leisure and a time to went off the stress of a regulated existence, but he did not share it: in his eyes, everything needed to have structure, purpose, solidity. Fate was not a fool’s game, the drunken dance of events and people on a tune without rhythm; but a perfect, wondrous mechanism, where everything found its place and meaning. Society had to reflect that cosmic perfection as close as the limited human mind could allow.

As soon as the Iron Legion took a de facto sovereignty over Port Tantor, Weil quelled the typical fracas. The urbanistic plan of the city was rewritten with a compass and a set square: streets were made either parallel or perpendicular to each other, tortuous allies made straight and narrow. Edifices in the docking districts where built with sound-proof materials, so that none of the ruckus inside was hearable a palm from the given edifice. Any would-be disturber of the public peace was soon and swiftly corrected by merciless watchers clad in grey robes. Port Tantor’s treasures had welcomed more money and traffics than ever, yet this city looked as clean, calm and quiet as a hinterland village.

Vánagandr wasn’t sure if loving this newfound silence. The slow reel of the beach waves, unperturbed by the clamors of a metropolis, had a calming effect on his psyche, gently submerging the clanking movements of the transistors placed in his head, a constant companion of his. Sitting on a cliff over the sea, black as ink except for the pale glisten of the moon above, emptied his mind a bit from worries. However, a city without ruckus, laughter, tears and even screams frightened him, it felt like a perfectly embalmed corpse with only the semblance of life. Everything that his Master touched turned out like that: stronger, more efficient, yet cruelly mechanical.

Still, moments of genuine peace were still too rare to be wasted on everyday horrors: as his best friend Dazang was used to say: “nothing beats good old-fashioned meditation on a lonely beachside”, though he would usually add “with the company of a three ice-cream trucks, two of vegetarian hamburgers and a pool of citron juice”. He was always a bit of a gluttonous hippie, even when immersing himself in unreachable spiritual highs. Minus the food, the Black Wolf was content just to dip his senses in mother nature. The myriads of receptors Weil had endowed him with basked in the quiet chorus of nature- the back- and- forth of waves, the far away screeching of seagulls, the tiptoeing of crabs on the muddy shoreline-.

Valerius' Kenbunshoku reacted to such peace, bubbling in a dome which encompassed the entire island and far beyond. To exercise his spiritual sense beyond his already nigh-perfect physical ones, the man was focusing on the emotions of the people frolicking in the glowing homes. He found the life -joy, rage and sorrow- he had missed from the almost empty streets. Yet any emotional tune was always… neutered, smothered. People were always putting a cap on their emotion, limiting themselves on what they could think or feel. Many knew they were under Weil’s gaze, each of their whisper could be heard and bring quick judgment; those who didn’t, still felt uneasy eyes and avid ears peeking in every corner of their mind. No secret was permitted under the doctor domain, no feeling was allowed to run rampant. Vánagandr sighed.