The Nichan Smile

by C. J. Merwild

  He overtook Mora, returning to the village center, taking Gus and Domino in his wake.

  “Wha—what?” Mora followed them. “Where are you taking him?”

  “To the infirmary. One of our people will get hurt eventually. He’ll stay there until we need his gift. Under guard.”

  “He’s only a child—”

  Too fast for Domino to catch the move, his uncle spun around and reached out. The next second, Mora’s collar was trapped in the man’s grasp. Domino let go of Gus’s hand and gripped his brother’s instead. He pulled him back, but Mora didn’t move an inch.

  Couldn’t he do anything? “Leave him alone,” Domino cried, noticing his own tears only now.

  Again, no answer. Ero didn’t even seem to see him. “Several months,” he said between his teeth, so close to Mora’s face that his forehead brushed against the teenager’s. “Fucking months of keeping this to yourself. You think this is a game? You think you’re above the law?”

  “No,” Mora promised in a gasp, shaking his head.

  “You wanted to challenge me? For fun? To see what it would feel like to lie to my face day after day?”

  “No.”

  “My son . . . Javik could have—” His hand squeezed Mora’s collar tighter, limiting the space for air to reach the young man’s lungs. “It took you all this time to tell me this. So we’ll wait. The Vestige will stay as long as it takes in this hut.”

  “No!” Domino cried.

  And his entrails froze when Ero’s eyes met his. It was brief, a fragment of a second. The next moment, his uncle released Mora.

  “You know what?” he said. “I don’t have time for this bullshit. Let’s get it over with now.”

  Ero’s hand disappeared behind his back. This time he found a knife.

  Mora, startled, opened his mouth.

  Domino had no time to react. Ero waved his hand in front of him, as if to show him the edge of the blade. A searing pain wrenched a scream out of the boy.

  Domino raised his hands to his face. The pain was all the worse.

  “No!” Mora choked.

  Without knowing how, Domino found himself on the ground, crying his eyes out. A warm liquid ran down his cheek and neck. It filled his right eye.

  His brother leaned over him. “Let me see it. Domino, let me see.”

  “It hurts!” the child cried, refusing to take his hands away.

  The flesh seemed to move beneath his palm, as if it were no longer attached to the bone of his skull. But Mora insisted on looking, removing one by one the hands Domino was pressing against his face.

  A shrill scream escaped the little boy.

  V I I I

  Marissin’s blood froze, every nerve in his body paralyzed by this heart-wrenching scream. In an instant, he stopped resisting the bone-crushing grip on his forearm.

  Under Domino’s left eye dangled a small piece of pink, bloody flesh. At the bottom of this deep wound, one could see the flashy white of the bone. Nausea rose in Marissin’s gut. Had Ero even hesitated before stabbing Domino? A flick of his wrist, face devoid of emotion, and blood had spilled everywhere, unstoppable.

  The little nichan brought his shaky palms back to his bloody face.

  Mora stopped him. “Don't touch it! It’s all right. It’s all right, Domino.” Then his eyes were on the other child. “Hey. Come on, help him.”

  All that blood, and Domino shouting at the top of his lungs.

  With disdain, Ero threw the human to the ground next to the two brothers, as if he weighed no more than a rag. The child tasted the cold water of the mud and stood there on all fours, staring at the triangle-shaped hole carved in Domino’s cheekbone.

  “Please.” Mora reached out his hand to him, a begging mask plastered on his face. “Come. Come closer.”

  It took a long time for Marissin to move and get up again. He didn’t want to look into this wound. He wanted to touch it even less. And the smell of blood . . . But most of all, he couldn’t stand to hear Domino cry anymore. The sounds fused inside his head, rubbing against his skull like a metallic claw. It had to stop.

  He stepped on his trembling limbs and waded through the mud. He knelt down beside the young nichan, who didn’t even seem to notice his presence. With his hands forced away from his face by Mora, Domino groaned between sobs and cries, cheeks dripping with tears and oily, rust-colored blood.

  Marissin raised one hand. A rush of blood overflowed from the wound. As if touched by a flame, the child backed away.

  “Hey,” Mora said. His voice was soft behind its tremor. “You can do this. Listen to me. It’s going to be all right. After this, it will be over. You hear me? You can do it.”

  The child had never doubted anything more in his entire life. He’d never treated anything like this before. It’d been easy to take care of Domino’s arm several months earlier, or of the few cuts that had followed. He knew how to do that. He’d done it before. Mother had cut the palm of her hand once—an eternity ago. Without thinking, he’d closed it up with a caress and healed the abrasion before Mother had the reflex to reprimand him. Yes, nothing more than a scratch. That hole that reached into the bone of Domino’s skull was no scratch. An inch higher and . . .

  Marissin battled the surge of images invading his mind. Not fast enough. A vision of the boy’s eyeball planted at the end of Ero’s blade flashed before his eyes and flipped his heart upside down.

  Ero. Was mutilation a nichan tradition? The three boys had come here to escape danger, to find shelter and family.

  Family. Did that even mean anything?

  “Hey!” Mora repeated, shaking his arm, and Marissin looked up at him. “He’s in pain. Please. Hurry.”

  Summoning all the courage he had left, the little boy raised his fingers to the level of Domino’s face. He had to touch the skin, not necessarily the wound, but for sure, he had to get as close as possible to the tissue in need of healing. So he placed his fingers along Domino’s cheekbone. The nichan trembled in his brother’s arms, reducing his lips to a thin line to keep the screaming at bay. Marissin closed his eyes, and the sensations submerged him.

  At first nothing but Domino’s quivering skin against his. Silence swallowed his surroundings, then his entire person.

  He saw them now, like thousands of diverted streams, overflowing out of their beds. Muscles, blood vessels, severed nerves. They formed a devastated landscape. The wound on Domino’s arm had been but a furrow dug in fresh earth. One hand had been enough to smooth it out. This time, it would take more than one stroke to restore the skin to its original condition. You can do it, he repeated to himself, an echo of Mora’s voice. He could do it. It wouldn’t be perfect, he knew that. It never was.

  He concentrated, and the work began. He attached one by one the disconnected nerves and veins. There were so many more than he had ever seen before. A sudden rush of blood splashed the surface of his mind. He struggled through it and held on to keep going. He plunged into its tide to tie the flesh together, emerged to catch his breath, and then dived once more as another thick wave surged at him. Exhaustion quickly overtook him, and he drew the necessary energy from Domino. He found plenty, so much of it his own body seemed too small to contain its overwhelming volume. He needed it; he couldn’t do it all by himself.

  He felt resistance under his busy aching hands. With a thrust, he overcame it and narrowed the gap, closing the wound’s lips. Beside his fingers, the skin gradually closed. He didn’t slacken his efforts, not until blood stopped flowing. The skin was the hardest part to repair. It was a complex, irregular mesh, all the more fragile in a child. To be sure to close it, each knot had to be strong. Respecting the original pattern didn’t matter. If Marissin attempted to do so, he would lose his health to the monumental task. He followed the line of the wound, rewove the thick and tender tissue. In his wake, the scar formed. In one last effort, he reached the limit of the opening.

  He was done.

  His eyes opened. He barely had time to apprec
iate Domino’s peaceful face before he fell backwards. His butt hit the wet ground, soaking him to the skin. He was out of energy, out of breath, starving. But he had made it. He raised his chin and admired his work. As he had expected, Domino’s cheek—on which he had left two muddy fingerprints—was marked with a curved, hollow, pale scar. He had given his all; it would hold.

  Returning his gaze, the young nichan raised his hand to his blood-covered face. Without hesitation, he delicately tested the flesh, rolling it under the pulp of his fingers. Relief overcame him, and he sat upright. He wasn’t yet seated before a hand grabbed Marissin’s wrist and put him back on his feet.

  “Perfect,” Ero said between his teeth, and he forced the child to walk to the houses on their right.

  “Ero . . . Ero, he succeeded,” Mora called without leaving his brother restlessly fighting in his arms.

  After one last glance, the human looked straight ahead. To look at the two brothers’ faces would be his undoing. He couldn’t let them see the tears rimming his amber eyes. Tears were for the weak, but he wasn’t weak if he called them back before anyone could see.

  “I want a word with you,” Ero told Marissin.

  Without further ado, he led him with a firm hand down an alleyway that separated two houses, walked to a hut, and opened the door. Inside there was no light except that of dusk filtering through the windows. There was no furniture, either. A scent of freshly cut wood and wet stone. The grates and the cast-iron basin of the brazier in the center of the room were clean; it’d never been used before. No one lived here, or maybe no one had ever lived here.

  Ero pushed him inside and closed the door behind him. When the little boy turned around, he was alone. He watched his surroundings, his body stretched out like a clothesline. His eyes refused to adjust to the darkness.

  Where had the clan leader gone? Why bring him here? He’d said he wanted to talk to him. So he should talk. Listening to Ero wouldn’t hurt. Where was he?

  The child didn’t dare move. He could have opened the door and fled, but what was the point? He was in enough trouble already.

  A minute passed. Then another. Impossible to catch his breath. His heart pounded, threatening to go up his throat.

  Through the walls, the familiar sound of footsteps grew louder. The boy stepped back as the door opened on Ero. The man was almost twice his size. Draped in shadows, his silhouette wore a familiar essence. No, not the silhouette—Marissin had never met anyone so imposing. It was rather his presence, cold and inflexible. Like a constant threat.

  His throat tightened, his intestines became animated, his healthy wing folded against his back.

  Fear.

  He couldn’t flinch. He had to be stronger than that. He gathered all his courage again to hold his head high.

  Ero entered the room, forcing Marissin to retreat. After a few steps, the man walked around the child and explored the area. Ero’s hand ventured here and there. The unlit brazier was offered a caress. The man then walked to one of the two small windows and leaned against the wall. A bit of light revealed the square features of his scarred, bearded face. His eyes were still bloodshot.

  He sniffed and stared at Marissin indecipherably.

  “This is where my son should have lived. His mother and I built this house for him. He was so excited, like a child going on his first hunt. He was waiting for his first night by the fire, his first meal. He’d never entered it.” He fell silent, gently shaking his head, as if facing once again the same inescapable reality. “No one will ever live here. All because a human decided that nichans had to die.” Another pause filled only by Marissin’s deafening heartbeat. “What you’ve just done outside is impressive. Javik had wounds on his face too. His neck. His chest . . . He was shot in the face. I wonder if there’s anything you could have done about it. Maybe you could have saved his life. Or maybe not. The answer rests with the Gods now.”

  He ran a hand over his beard, rubbing its black, bushy curls, and took a deep breath. Something was pinched between Ero’s fingers. It was small and blue. Marissin couldn’t see well, and the twilight thickened as the nichan spoke. “I heard you want to stay with my clan. The last human who claimed this honor had to prove that she was essential to my people. I believe you are too. So you may stay. There are conditions to this privilege.

  “You’ll do what it takes to heal the wounded. You’re not allowed to leave the village. For now you’re too slow, but when we deem it necessary, you’ll follow us on the hunt. This gift in you, no one knows its limits. Or even its tricks.”

  He raised his hand and showed the child what he held between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you know what it is?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “It’s an Op crystal. A crystal named after a God. Op. It’s not easy to get your hands on one. It’s very rare. They say it only appears on the burials of certain dead people. Why? Go figure. A fragment like this is worth a small fortune. It was around the neck of the man who butchered my son. Apparently, he had a problem with Vestiges too, not just nichans.”

  Marissin didn’t understand anything anymore. An Op crystal. He’d never heard of it, it wasn’t in Mother’s book. It didn’t matter. He just wanted to get out of here.

  “I’ve never seen its effects,” Ero said as he scanned the blue pebble between his fingers, then the child’s face.

  The man brought his hand to the narrow window sill and dropped the crystal.

  A scream sprang from Marissin’s throat. He collapsed, unable to breathe. To think. The pain, it was everywhere. His blood boiled in his veins while a million thorns pierced his flesh. His bladder emptied, his bowels followed.

  Mother! Mother!

  The pain subsided and disappeared in an instant, as if it had never been real. Lying on the ground, his arms hugging his thin body, the boy opened his eyes. The piss and shit in which he lay was real, as was the blood escaping his nostrils, flavoring his mouth.

  With the energy of desperation, he crawled backwards until the wall put an end to his retreat. On the other side of the room, Ero again held the crystal in his hand. He nodded, raising an eyebrow, and approached Marissin. Once close to him, he crouched down and showed him the rough blue stone up close. The child wanted to scream but his throat didn’t respond. Only his legs did, shoving his small silhouette against the wall. This time, nothing could hold back the fear that had replaced the pain throughout his body. If Ero dropped that crystal again, Marissin would die—his sole certainty in his life.

  “It’s a warning,” Ero said. “As long as you don’t hurt anyone, as long as you behave yourself, you’ll never see the color of this stone again. You can make yourself useful as much as you want, but don’t forget one thing: in spite of your usefulness, you remain a Vestige. An inconvenience. Try not to remind me of it.”

  With that, he closed his hand on the crystal and left the place.

  It took much longer for the child to gather his strength and spirit and flee the hut to hide.

  As the minutes went by, Domino became more and more afraid of never finding the human again. Something bad had happened. No proof needed; he felt it in his heart. Ero had reappeared an hour earlier, alone, on his way to his house where his grieving partner and daughter waited for him. But Gus remained absent. (Domino no longer made the effort to rectify the name in his mind. He was far too preoccupied.) Even more alarming, the human boy’s scent had vanished. Outside their hut, Domino couldn’t identify it among the others, as if it had been erased. It was dark now, and the days of late winter preceded increasingly cooler nights.

  Mora refused to leave Domino. After what had happened, it seemed beyond his strength. As they searched the village, his hand remained pressed against his little brother’s shoulder. Domino appreciated the gesture, however. The blood on his clothes was only beginning to crystallize, making the stained collar and front of his tunic as rigid as frost.

  He raised his hand to his cheekbone and played with the newly repaired flesh. Beneath the scar, the muscl
e consistency had hardened. The pain had been excruciating, spreading in his skull in burning thrusts. Now it was but a phantom sensation at the edge of his right eye. It was hard to accept that Gus had fixed everything in less than a minute. And though he was now calm, Domino was still in shock, his body tense but tired. Something had drained his strength while the other boy took care of his cheek.

  He stopped at the edge of the village, facing one of the high bamboo walls, and inhaled the air, filling his chest. A faint smell of excrement came up his nose. It wasn’t Gus’s scent, or the scent of his skin or hair, yet Domino clung to invisible tendrils of the stench. Something was wrong.

  “Why does it smell like poo here?” Domino asked as he followed this trail.

  “The waste pit is on the other side of the village,” Mora noted.

  Before he could come to any conclusions, Domino heard it through the soft whistle of the wind. A muffled moan. Forgetting the tiredness numbing his muscles, he raced in that direction. He jumped over a fence that led to the clan’s chicken coop and barely caught up when his foot got stuck in the bamboo.

  “Domino, watch out!”

  But the child ignored the warning. He crossed the farmyard, waking up the shady hens brooding in their aviaries, and found him there, hidden between two rows of pens. His face couldn’t be seen, for Gus had buried it between his trembling knees. He was slumped against one of the cages, as if asleep or in lack of strength to sit by himself. Domino walked to him and noticed the filth on the human’s pants. The closer he got, the more disgusting the smell of the droppings became. But even another Corruption Rain would have failed to stop Domino.

  “Gus.” His whisper triggered no reaction.

  Of course it wouldn’t. Gus wasn’t his name. Domino had said it without thinking.

  Behind him, Mora discovered the child’s condition and spoke in a low voice. “Damn it. What has he done to him?”

  Without further ado, Domino approached the human and sat down beside him. The space between the pens was narrow, yet Mora found a way to squeeze through as well. Still moaning, his hands flat against the wet soil, the child’s breath quickened upon the two brothers’ arrival.