The Nichan Smile

by C. J. Merwild

  After that, it’d become clear that their journey would turn all the more difficult.

  “The Road of the Gods is two days away from here. People are heading up to the Arao. I like this one,” the sanctuary’s guardian had told them, pointing at a bearskin. “If you want to sell more, you have to go through the city.”

  “No, thanks,” had said Ero.

  “As you wish. Otherwise there’s Kepam. It’s in one of the chasms of the Great Evil. It’s connected to Papema by the Road of the Gods, but it’s quieter, and cheap, as you can imagine.”

  “We’re going south.”

  The news had surprised Domino. The guardian had seemed to find the idea preposterous. “Then you’ll need all the luck in the world. You better line the road or the west coast. Things are getting messy down there. There are a few nichans clans, if you need help. Some of them aren’t exactly kind, though. Not sure they’ll open their doors for you.”

  “A nichan never lets his brothers and sisters starve,” Memek had said.

  “You can still try,” had said the guardian. “But there are almost as many Blessers’ partisans out there. They’re clearing the way to Ponsang. Lay low, friendly advice.”

  The lake region was fragmented into many rivers, ponds, and large lakes of unpronounceable names. Here and there, a few woods offered better shelter for the night. It was in one of them that Domino, Ero, and Memek had decided to rest. They’d left the last sanctuary that morning, yet the echo of detonations still chased them.

  Lying under a lamp hanging from a branch, one arm as a pillow, Domino observed the bottomless sky. He felt that this night, although disturbed by the distant detonations, would be one of the last peaceful nights he’d know. The Blessers hadn’t yet reached Torbatt, but those who adhered to their whimsical ideology were preparing the ground for them. Here, a semblance of war was already in progress, apparently. It seemed so strange. They’d only left Surhok three weeks ago.

  Domino sighed, agitated, and passed a hand over his stomach. For a moment he imagined it was Gus touching him, taking care of him, safe in their hut, warm, with a belly full of a good meal.

  He was still full of Gus’s almost imperceptible moaning, like the chant of water. His small and delicate body. The exquisite arching of his back under Domino’s fingers . . .

  Domino forced himself to interrupt the thread of his thoughts. After all those weeks away from his friend, he couldn’t divert his mind from this particular moment. He thought about it every night. But this wasn’t the time or place for such daydreams. Better wait to be on his own for that.

  He reopened his eyes a second before another blast rang in the distance.

  Faces, make them stop.

  Impossible to sleep.

  Domino straightened up and rubbed his face. Behind him, Memek was sleeping, lying on a pile of unsold furs, snoring slightly. Next to her, spread under the glow of the lanterns that would burn all night, Ero kept his eyes open. One look in Domino’s direction, then he returned to his thoughts.

  As promised, they were heading south, toward trouble. Ero probably hoped that this initiative would awaken Domino’s lost instincts, that in the face of real danger, the young man would react and set the beast free. A curious strategy, for coming close to dying at a partisan’s hand hadn’t helped. But at least Domino had announced his desire to try.

  “What if I don’t have enough willpower? Who says I can control this thing?” had dared to ask Domino after making his decision, a couple of weeks ago. “I don’t remember anything. It’s like a hole in my memory. This beastly form may be some kind of . . . second state beyond my control. What happens in this case?”

  “In that case you’ll die,” Ero had said, calmly, his piercing gaze on Domino. “You keep telling me you’re nichan. For sure you are, the purest blood I know. You’re also a hunter. Whatever happens, you will fight. That’s your thing, even when you can’t hold a candle to your enemy. You know what it’s like, the longing for action. We hunters are born for that. But that isn’t the form in which you’ll win. Nichans aren’t made to fight in human form. So if you do, you’ll die.”

  Domino had laughed softly. A speech without detours or illusion.

  “Well,” he’d said as he stood, ignoring the pain that still tugged at his belly after his uncle’s debilitating punch, “at least neither one of us is in denial.”

  “It’s not my kind. We’ll end up finding bigger trouble than we’ve ever encountered before, Domino. These assholes won’t spare you just because of your shortcomings. If you don’t transform, you’ll be the first one they kill.”

  “Then I’ll have to transform. And if I can’t, I’ll try to take at least one of them with me to the grave.”

  They hadn’t really spoken that much ever since. They’d repeated themselves enough already.

  Domino waited silently for another moment, looking up at the lantern and the flame whistling on the surface of the melted nohl fat. When Ero’s snoring groaned next to him, the young man stood without a sound.

  Domino closed his eyes to block the golden glow of his lantern. A breeze ruffled his hair, constant whistling, waving the thick leaved branches. It carried a pungent smell in its wake. An animal had marked its territory nearby. Nothing Domino couldn’t ignore. He clenched his fists and then relaxed them, laying his palms flat on his lap. He concentrated on his heartbeat, as he’d done so many times since his youngest years. The cool air caressed his neck. Cooler than a few weeks earlier. The season was advancing, leaving the heat behind for good.

  Domino released a long breath and raised his hand to his chest, clutching the empty space where his necklace would have been if he hadn’t left it at Surhok. How unpleasant, as though he’d left several of his bones back home. The missing weight against his heart was unsettling.

  I should never have taken it off.

  Domino lowered his hand. He was not to let it distract him. He would get his necklace back. He would see Gus again. Everything was fine. He was safe. So were the others.

  He passed his tongue over his lips and swallowed. In the distance, an owl accompanied the silence of the night, encouraging.

  Domino had made up his mind. It was time.

  He remembered Mora’s lessons. At the time Domino had only been ten years old and something was wrong. He’d never transformed. He was the right age, everyone said so. So Mora had given him a push.

  “It’s like stopping yourself from running down a slope. There’s . . . it’s like a stream flowing through us, keeping us in our human camouflage. You must feel it inside you.”

  “Where?” Domino had asked back then.

  “All over you. No, don’t look, you won’t see anything. Close your eyes. Come on. Breathe in, relax. It’s like the beat of your heart. It’s there, constant, both in your chest, in the pulp of your fingers, in your toes. You never think about it, but it’s there; it lives inside you. Tell me what you feel.”

  “I feel . . . it’s tingling.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Focus on that. Just tell me what it is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does it look like?”

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “Even things you can’t see have an image, a texture, a taste. Think about it. Take your time.”

  Domino had done so. Through his endlessly repeating pulse and breath, he’d perceived a shadow with golden reflections. It had no name, no shape, except that of Domino himself. And something else.

  “It’s buzzing,” he’d said.

  “A buzzing tingling,” Mora had concluded, a smile in his voice. “I like it. Come on, let’s keep going. Listen to the buzzing, follow it. Hold on to it and stop it.”

  “Stop it?”

  “Yes, to stop the flow, keep it from trapping you in human form.”

  In the middle of the woods, motionless in his amber bubble lost in complete darkness, remembering word for word his brother’s advice, Domino opened his eyes. His breath quickened, an icy
sweat ran down his back.

  The buzzing, he couldn’t feel it anymore.

  It was impossible. It had to be there somewhere. Domino had to concentrate harder. His eyelids drooped, he blocked out the trembling threatening his concentration and the steadiness of his posture.

  A buzzing tingling.

  The dark stream of the Corruption in his being, as everyone said. To transform, one had to push back that flow, to block and filter it.

  Nothing. It had to be there. Domino was nichan, and though he’d forgotten it, he’d already transformed before. Completely. After that fateful day, he no longer had tried to block the flow, to reach his natural shape. Quite the contrary. He’d let it run free inside him, seeing it as a bulwark against the beast that had killed his brother. A protection.

  He’d shut down all the rest. He’d . . . muzzled the beast.

  Why did he feel nothing now?

  “Come on,” he said in a shaky breath.

  He had made his decision. He was ready. Taking his puck with him, an oval plank with handles to protect modest travelers from the potential black rain, he’d moved away from where his uncle and cousin slept so as not to run any risk, finding a quiet and open place to give his bestial form the space it required. He still had time to practice.

  For long minutes he searched inside, but soon the sham of his heart pounding in his chest overshadowed everything else. Then another shock in the distance.

  Breathe. Don’t panic . . .

  If he had to transform again—and he had every intention of doing so—Domino would do it on his own terms. Calmly, entering into communion with himself, not under the yoke of fear.

  Several hours passed. Silence. Emptiness.

  Footsteps approached. Light, a little clumsy. Domino opened his eyes for the first time in quite some time. Dawn was approaching, no doubt, but darkness still reigned.

  Behind him, Memek sighed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he lied. Lies it would be, until he’d made progress.

  A lump formed in his throat. He swallowed it.

  I’ll get there. I can do it. I just need time.

  “You didn’t sleep at all?” Memek asked.

  He turned to her. She’d hung her own lantern from a branch and was unravelling her braids ruffled by the friction of her head against the animal skins. Her hair was long and slick, like Mora’s . . .

  His legs were numb from kneeling half the night. Domino slowly got up. “Is Ero awake?”

  “He went back for water. He told me to find you.”

  “You did.”

  “Yes, and you look like a man who hasn’t slept in weeks.”

  Domino rubbed his face and ignored the comment. Weeks was a little too strong. Days, however, was closer to the truth. Days that felt like weeks.

  “My father is right, you know,” said Memek. “You’re hurting yourself for nothing.” She sighed, threw her long black hair behind her shoulders, and stretched out with a grimace. “Faces above! I want a fucking bed.”

  And she turned. Domino followed her. He hoped very much that soon he would be able to reassure everyone by regaining control of his body. The remarks would finally stop. Then they would go home.

  It was reported in the small town of Kepam that partisans farther south in the country were raising funds for a monster hunt. The monsters in question were nichans, of course.

  Standing on a bench, a human brandished a poster she’d brought back from her last errand south of the Osska Lakes. For those who couldn’t see it as well as those who couldn’t read at all, the woman read aloud.

  “ ‘The Great Evil spares no region. Don’t let it slip under your bed. Join us or make your contribution. The beast must die.’ ”

  Everyone in the inn was silent.

  Set at the bottom of a ravine overlooked by the rest of the village, welcoming guests on three floors for food and lodging, the inn was full of humans and nichans at all hours of the day and night. And no matter their degree of inebriation, none of them wished to hear about the partisans or the Blessers.

  “That’s on everyone’s minds and lips lately. You can’t drink or take a shit in peace anymore,” said one customer before emptying his pitcher with a single, heavy sip.

  “You’re taking a shit right now?” asked his table neighbor.

  Still perched on her improvised dais under the tired gaze of the owner brewing tea and warming up wine in a pot, the human, bearer of bad news, continued. “ ‘The beast must die. May we give Light back to the Gods . . . ’ They translated the rest into Meishuana. Looks like Meishuana. Whatever. Just warning everyone, in case you’re going south or east of the lakes. And for anyone who needs to wipe their ass, I’ll leave this here.”

  She came down from her perch and put the crumpled poster on the counter. It quickly disappeared without anyone caring who’d taken it.

  Sitting at a small table not far away, Domino scratched his head before repressing his gesture. He dreamed of a bath as much as his cousin dreamed of a bed. They would have neither. Unlike the rest of the region, the town had no hot springs. There were indeed baths heated by wood fire near the entrance of the town, on the Road of the Gods, mainly reserved for travelers, but following an epidemic of lactic fever, the kivhan—or major—of Kepam had forbidden access to nichans. A simple precaution, it was said. The place would be reopened to everyone soon, the kivhan promised.

  Ero and his family had been directed to the inn, unlike the establishments controlled by the kivhan and his council, open to anyone whose purse wasn’t empty yet. Domino had rejoiced.

  To reach the inn, one had to go all the way down to the bottom of the ravine that adjoined the town. It was reached by a wobbly staircase anchored in the rock.

  A most unusual place. The Kepam chasm had appeared on the day of the Great Evil. An unimaginable tremor had wiped out half of the town, leaving the rest miraculously intact, as if the gigantic foot of a God had trampled the landscape, stamping a deep imprint forever.

  As Memek had approached this perfectly circular crater of smooth rocky walls, she’d opened her eyes in amazement. “Faces and tits! Look at that. Looks like this was cut with a knife by the Gods themselves.”

  His heart pounding, Domino had approached the railing, smiling, feeling insignificant before this incomparable view. “What do you think did that? Not a knife, right?”

  “Who knows? Maybe the Gods fell from the sky, right here. Or maybe that’s the world’s butthole. What if the Corruption came from here?”

  “There are other chasms of the Great Evil. In the rest of the world, I mean,” he had said, catching a questioning glance from his cousin. “A big part of Netnin is full of them. That’s a lot of buttholes.”

  Memek had seemed both curious and doubtful. “Well, that’s a fucking big world. So that’s not the only one?”

  “No.”

  “Faces above! Sounds like you know a thing or two.”

  “You think I’m playing you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t dare.” She had bitten her lip and glanced down into the depths of the pit. “Does Netnin look like this? Like a huge hole full of rubble?”

  “Don’t forget to mention the inn.”

  She had smiled at him before she pursed her lips, as if to stop herself from doing so. So Domino had decided to tell her more, to share the few insights he’d gained years earlier from Matta’s lessons.

  “Netnin doesn’t quite look like that, actually. There are many chasms, an incalculable number of them, even though I’m sure those who live there have counted them. But they’re connected to one another by channels. The ocean and the Tuleen sea flow into them. They’re no longer chasms, they’re lakes in the middle of cold plains. And from what I’ve been told, there is another difference, and a big one at that.” Memek stared at him, her eyebrows slightly frowning, hanging onto his every word. “Over there, wherever you find craters like this one, above these plains and these round lakes, are hills floating in the air.
”

  Memek’s impression had then changed from interest to boredom. “Because you’ve been there, of course?”

  “No. I’ve—”

  “Then stop talking like you have. Bragging doesn’t look good on you.”

  “I’m not bragging.”

  “Why don’t you focus on your transformation instead? Transformation. Sounds familiar? And don’t try to educate me about things you don’t know shit about. It makes you sound like Beïka.”

  Domino was silent, a knot in his stomach. Memek had then turned away from him to join Ero, who hadn’t bothered to stop to admire the landscape.

  When they’d arrived at the inn, their excitement was shattered. The establishment was full. Apart from a meal and a drink to forget their setbacks, they wouldn’t be entitled to anything. Only guests staying overnight could enjoy the private baths. So was life along the Road of the Gods. Cluttered.

  Domino took a sip of his mulled wine. Facing him, Ero rummaged through his satchel. Since they’d left, its sides had swelled like expecting women’s bellies, as had Memek’s bag, which now lay at Domino’s feet. Under the tired gaze of his daughter and nephew, Ero pulled something out of the bag, something Domino was seeing for the first time. Ero looked at the long object, weighting it in his large hand, and placed it on the table in front of Domino. The young man shivered.

  It was a hunting knife. A thick weapon protected by a sheath of boiled white leather.

  “What’s that?” Domino asked after swallowing his wine.

  “It’s a knife, you idiot,” Memek said in a whisper, peering at the weapon with unmissable annoyance.

  “No shit?”

  “You said you wanted to make yourself useful in the hunt.” Ero cut them off. “Here’s your chance.”

  Domino froze. Close to him, Memek straightened up as if to put some distance between her and the blade.

  “Are you kidding me?” Domino said. “I don’t want that thing.”

  He surely didn’t. As heat rose in his face, he scanned the room with a circular gaze to make sure no nichan saw him when he touched the knife to push it toward his uncle. The man grabbed the weapon and slammed it down in front of Domino, making the handle vibrate against the wood on the table.