The Nichan Smile

by C. J. Merwild

  Everyone except Ero. Domino could recognize his deep tone through his heavy breathing. After a long moment during which Beïka, a little farther on, tried to see something over the shoulders of his fellow villagers, the clan chief spoke.

  “My son is dead. Javik . . . My boy is gone.”

  Domino let out a sharp breath at this announcement. A groan of pain rose from the crowd. It was a woman’s voice.

  Ero had many children. Five daughters and two sons. As in the case of Domino and his brothers, most of these children had been conceived without love; an agreement between two adults offering a woman the opportunity to be a mother. A common practice among nichans. Domino ignored his uncle’s other children. The man was no father to them, only a genitor. Memek and Javik, however, were the children Ero had had with his life partner, Orsa. Children recognized and raised by both parents.

  And now Javik was no more. He’d been seventeen, Mora’s age.

  Domino hadn’t taken the time to get to know him. Javik was a stranger. And yet his heart tightened, as if a frozen current had washed through his bones. Another member of his family had just died.

  Mama should be here, Domino thought. After more than five months, he and his brothers had come to terms. Ako wouldn’t come.

  To his right, in the shadow of the huts, Beïka pulled out a wooden box, climbed on it, and no longer needed to stretch his neck to witness the event. Domino searched for something to raise his position. He turned around and froze. The human had followed him after all, and waited a few steps behind. He made no movement. With his striking gaze, he just stared at Domino.

  He’s not here for me. He just wants to see.

  He placed his hand on a barrel, ignoring the other child’s presence, and was soon as tall as the others.

  In the middle of the square, in the exact spot where the nichans had skinned the nohl the night they’d arrived in Surhok, were Ero and Orsa. She was as tall as the clan’s Unaan, her figure long and muscular. The lower half of her hair fell down her back in an endless cascade, the rest gathered in a braid at the top of her head. Like most Uetos, her earlobes were distended by thick wooden jewelry.

  Domino had always found Orsa intimidating. Today, she was nothing but a bundle of unrestrained tears.

  Ero held her tightly in his arms. She clutched him with the strength of despair, each squeeze of his hugging sending tears down her cheeks, like a sponge. Ero was crying, too, but while Orsa’s eyes stared at the marred sky, he kept his own on the prisoner.

  And as soon as Domino spotted him, he couldn’t look away from him.

  The man was on his knees, shaken with untimely tremors. Though nudity was a natural state for nichans, Domino knew humans kept it to the privacy of their home. Was stripping this man bare part of the punishment? There was no doubt this human was somehow responsible for Javik’s premature death.

  Ero embraced Orsa for a moment. She later broke away from him to try to catch her breath through her heartbreaking sobs.

  “This human killed my son,” Ero said as he stood before the man who dared raise his head to challenge the Unaan’s gaze. “Look down!”

  Ero’s fist crushed the man’s jaw. A crackling sound echoed throughout the village and dark blood blended with saliva flowed from the man’s swollen and cleft lips. The prisoner collapsed backwards, as limp as a boneless fish, but was kept upright by powerful hands. Head dangling sideways, his jaw hanging off its axis, the prisoner choked on the fluids filling his mouth. Several teeth slipped out of his parted lips and got lost in the mud on the ground. The blow had been restrained, for even in his human form Ero could have torn the human’s jaw off. All his strength hadn’t yet been released.

  Voices approved in the crowd, and the shadows of several transformations stretched here and there, like a wave spreading over the surface of the water. These nichans—no doubt those who had gone hunting with Ero and who therefore knew the details of the affair, as well as his closest friends—craved revenge.

  The Unaan passed a hand over his face and beard to wipe away his tears. “My son should have lived,” he said, grabbing the man by the hair. The prisoner’s small body shivered like a leaf in the wind. Ero made eye contact and his fingers snaked around the human’s throat. “He would have become a man, a powerful nichan. He shouldn’t be resting in the dirt away from his clan.”

  A new groan from Orsa. A smaller woman with bloodshot eyes approached and hugged the Unaan’s partner from behind. Orsa screamed at the sky and the arms encircling her waist held her with more comforting force.

  The rules regarding the dead were as strict for nichans as they were for humans. A body had to be buried immediately after death. Always. The person was then given a decent burial to appease their soul and allow them to rejoin the Gods, wherever they were now. Without this, the Corruption would grow around the corpse and a spirit would emerge on the scene, calling for justice and peace. No one had yet learned how to communicate with the spirits to understand their heart, so it was necessary to appease the dead to keep the Corruption at bay. For this reason, Javik’s body hadn’t been brought back to Surhok. His father had been forced to bury him within minutes of his death, probably near where he’d been murdered.

  Away from home.

  Tears came to Domino’s eyes, and for the first time he felt a surge of compassion for his uncle and his partner. And his cousin Memek, was she aware of the news? Domino took his eyes off the prisoner to seek her out. In the midst of this dark and compact crowd, Memek was nowhere to be seen.

  Still bending over, Ero brought his face closer to the prisoner’s. “You, motherfucker, will have to endure shame and oblivion. No one will hear your last words, no one will ever find your grave. Say goodbye to your hands. There’s no way I’m letting you reach the Gods’ faces.” The human hiccuped, blood flowing onto his broken jaw, and tears washed parts of his face. “For what you’ve done to my son, you will not be forgiven, no matter the words spoken on your grave.”

  Ero’s face changed. His brown skin turned to raven black, his mouth widened into a grin of several rows of fangs, remodeling the limits of his human bones. Ero’s muscles swelled and tightened, protruding all around his broad neck, through his clothes. The hand holding the prisoner’s hair lengthened, and claws as long as Domino’s forearm lacerated the human’s scalp. Blood ran between his sweat-soaked locks, along his forehead and into his mouth.

  Like a chant, the nichans growled and praised their Unaan’s transformation.

  Domino felt this common hatred all around him, making the air denser in his lungs. All over the square, the nichans transformed. They abandoned their human camouflage, favoring their original form.

  As Domino had already seen in his brothers, many shouted or moaned in frustration, for this was only a fragment of the transformation they were seeking to accomplish. In the old days, nichans were majestic four-legged beasts. Their strength had once been unmatched. Only then. Today, as every day since the Gods disappeared from the sky, they should all be content with what their essence altered by the Corruption would allow them to do: only a semblance of transformation.

  A shiver crawled up Domino’s spine as the nichans plunged into the shadows, revealing their murderous shape. He turned to Beïka. He, too, had shifted. Domino was still too young to do the same but something in him called for action.

  Gus . . .

  Behind Domino, the young human had retreated several steps to stick himself against a hut. The surge of rage that now saturated the place could reach him as well. Domino wanted to join him, but Orsa’s voice brought him back to the execution.

  “Let me do it. Ero, let me . . . Let me bleed this animal.”

  She walked over to Ero and placed a trembling hand on his shoulder. When he agreed to her request, she had already transformed.

  The human’s hands were released, and the two nichans guarding him forced the man to reach forward, like an offering of his own flesh. He tried to fight back, but to no avail. No human could res
ist such strength. Panting, he opened his eyes in terror when the rope that held him seconds ago was wrapped around his neck.

  From his perch, Domino’s reflex was to cover his own throat.

  Orsa took her husband’s place. She lowered her bottomless black eyes to the man who had killed her son. He looked so small and harmless compared to her, like an animal in a trap. How had such a weak creature managed to kill Javik?

  Orsa didn’t need an answer to that question. Her son had been taken from her. She would care later about how.

  With a powerful blow, her claws pierced the man’s right hand. A moan followed, then a deafening scream. With a sharp jerk, she spread her arm, tearing the tortured man’s hand to shreds. Domino squeezed his hands to his chest, perceiving in the man’s screams all the suffering he could no longer hide. Orsa repeated the process with the second hand, this time starting at the wrist. Blood and fragments of bone spurted across the square and onto the stone and mud. The nichans grunted their approval.

  Then Domino almost choked on his breath. Ero threw the end of the rope wrapped around the human’s neck over the scaffolding from which the village bell hung. As in a nightmare Domino had already experienced, the man’s body rose, up and up in sharp jerks under the acclamation.

  Shredded flesh hung limp from his bloody arms. The naked body, stripped of all modesty or respect, shook with jolts. The head hung purplish on the other side of the rope. This was what everyone witnessed.

  Everyone.

  Including the Vestige behind Domino.

  Endless seconds passed before Domino escaped his daze to react. He jumped down from his barrel and threw himself in front of the little human, using his own body to block the view. He wrapped his arms around the human, who froze for a moment, gasping for air.

  “Don’t look,” Domino said.

  In response, the human jostled him and broke free from his embrace. As pale as death, he ran out of the square, sneaking between houses. After a moment of paralyzing torpor, Domino followed him. Nearly panicking, he passed a hut and looked around. Gus had vanished. The child had probably returned to the hut he shared with Domino and his brothers. It was the first place to search.

  The little nichan went in this direction but stopped in his tracks. Belma and Mora had left the square as well and were walking his way. Domino jumped behind the corner of the closest hut and ducked.

  Mora seemed to be in a state of shock. His complexion had paled, and Belma held his hand, urging him to move away from the din animating the village center. The two stopped in the shade of a house.

  “I’ve seen death before,” Mora mumbled. “I guess I forgot . . . ”

  “I know. I’ve already . . . It’s hard.”

  “Belma. I’m so sorry.”

  The girl pursed her lips and shook her head. “That’s not the same. It’s the memories that hurt. It almost makes me feel good, what they just did to that man.”

  “Because of . . . what happened to your parents?”

  “This human is like the ones who took everything from me. He deserved it.”

  Mora nodded his head, not taking his eyes off his friend. “I—I saw Javik’s body . . . after that man killed him.”

  “How?” Belma asked after a hesitation. The bones of her round jaw hardened.

  “Javik had—” said Mora, searching for his words, running a hand over his forehead. “His face was shredded. The human, he used one of those explosive weapons. I was outside Zato, in the woods, but I heard the sound it made. It was worse than thunder. Those weapons are faster than us.”

  “It’s a Blessers thing, huh? Only they could invent weapons like this and put them in Torbs’ hands.”

  Mora swallowed heavily and sighed a trembling breath. Belma’s hand went up his arm and captured the teenager’s face. The girl then bent down and placed her lips on Mora’s. She lingered there for several seconds. When she moved back, Mora held her close to him, eyes veiled, mouth half-open as if to savor her scent. From his hiding place, Domino dismissed the perfect opportunity to escape. He was fascinated.

  Mora had regained some color. The corners of his mouth shivered, heralding a smile to come. “You . . . Isn’t it a little strange to do this now? After that, I mean.”

  Belma shrugged, playing with the braid hanging on Mora’s shoulder. “I don’t know. I want to. I need to. Would you like me to stop?”

  This time, it was Mora who approached to kiss the girl. She allowed him to do so, pressing herself against the teenager’s body, cheeks rosy. Her lips parted and the pink of wet tongues flashed between their open mouths.

  The kiss dragged on, and Domino finally took advantage of the diversion to slip away in silence and join their hut.

  The human sat in the farthest corner of the room. It had been months since the child had cowered there. Knees bent against him, his head leaning against the wall, he was still panting. He looked in Domino’s direction but avoided his gaze the next second. Like Mora, the shock had swallowed the colors of his face.

  No, it was far worse than that. A man had been hanged before his eyes with a savagery Domino was still unable to process. The man’s torn hands, his face swollen and covered in blood. And the rope tightly wrapped around his neck. Ero hadn’t wasted his time preparing a noose, as if his son’s murderer wasn’t worth the trouble. All of it was now carved in Domino’s mind. But in the end, the result remained the same. The human child had just experienced through another the torment he himself had survived.

  Domino hesitated to come closer. He knew the boy, his way of closing in on himself when fear ruled his mind, when he was angry, his way of pushing him away if Domino tried to offer him help, like the day before. He wanted to comfort the human, to tell him that he understood. Did he, though? It wasn’t around his neck that a rope had been tied.

  Then he thought of Mora. He remembered his brother, his trembling hands, his troubled breath and Belma, whose support—that kiss—had worked miracles. Their mother used to do that too. A kiss on the cheek or on the forehead to soothe them, to send their fears away. It hadn’t always worked, and he figured the answer was there, outside. The cheek or the forehead. Belma had kissed Mora on the lips.

  Could he do that, too? Would the other boy feel better? A kiss to ease his heart and fears.

  The little nichan stepped into the room. The other child stayed still. Domino was still too far away to read it as a good sign. So he went one step further.

  Without warning, shouting voices rose from the other side of the door, along heavy and alarming footsteps. The house door slammed open, carrying a vague metallic scent. Ero stood there, human blood smeared on his chest, face closed, eyes red. He lowered them first on Domino who backed away by reflex, assaulted by his Unaan’s anger. Then they landed on the human. The child straightened, his chest swelling with the frenetic rhythm of his breathing.

  Without a word, Ero walked up to the human, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him outside.

  “No!” Domino cried.

  He shouted again and again but his uncle wouldn’t listen. Ero kept dragging behind him the human whose legs were too short to follow his long strides.

  “Ero, please!” Mora called as he followed the movement. “I beg you!”

  What was going on? Why was Ero going after Gus? What was he going to do to him?

  The rope.

  The man they’d hanged under the bell.

  No!

  Domino ran to catch his uncle, who cut through the village. At the end of his arm, Gus—the human struggled. He was trying to unfold Ero’s fingers. Did he know that each of his fingers was more powerful than all the strength the child possessed? It was a lost cause.

  The main square was now empty. As he reached its center, Domino grabbed his uncle’s tunic. He had to hold him back. Ero pushed Domino away, and the boy crashed into the crimson mud. He got up immediately and charged towards his leader. In the village, the now-scattered nichans followed the scene without a hint of emotion.

&
nbsp; Mora was still begging Ero, palms up. “Please stop!”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Ero, he’s just a child. Don’t throw him out.”

  Out? He was going to expel Gus, leave him outside, to the wild animals? And there were worse than animals outside these walls. He would die out there.

  “No! No!” Domino yelled, grabbing Gus’s other hand to hold him down.

  He wasn’t just a human. It was his friend; he was Gus.

  So Domino held tight. The result was the same: insignificant.

  Gus screamed, torn between the two forces pulling him in opposite directions. But Domino had to save him. He couldn’t let his friend go. He couldn’t bear it. Gus couldn’t die.

  The doors of Surhok were opened, and Ero dragged the two children after him, not caring who would get stuck outside the rampart.

  But he stopped when Mora spoke again, in a voice as clear as desperate. “He has the gift! The child has the gift. He can heal wounds. He can save lives. Ero, I beg you!”

  Without freeing Gus, Ero slowly turned to his nephew. Hands clasped, eyes round, Mora looked as if he was about to fall to his knees before his Unaan. Ero approached him, forming a chain with the two little boys still clinging to his arm.

  The man’s black eyed gaze plunged into Mora’s. “Say that again.”

  “He has the gift. He knows how to close wounds with the gift.”

  “You’d be willing to lie to me to save his miserable life?”

  “Don’t say it!” Domino cried, horrified to hear Mora confess this truth, but his brother ignored him, responding only to his master’s words.

  “I’ve seen it with my own eye. He did it. On Domino.”

  “How long have you known about this?” Ero asked.

  “Several months.”

  All the sorrow that had marked Ero’s face gave way to an icy rage that made Mora suddenly retreat. The young man slipped on the dirty cobblestones and lost his balance.

  “Very well,” said Ero. “Let’s make sure of it.”