Apotheose

“You can tell Mr. Goodsir that I read that dictionary of his,” Hickey says. “I was impressed.”

When Crozier frowns, the split across the bridge of his nose furrows and breaks apart.

“It won’t do you much good.”

It had been a surprise to find that the fellow could even read – he’d been among the ratings who signed their names with a mark. Hickey has made his mark now, of course. Perhaps it had been Sergeant Tozer who had first guided his pen, or Mr. Gibson. God only knew how he’d gotten a hold of Crozier’s resignation letter; Francis had cast it off not long after that, had obliterated the words and taken the guilt back inside himself.

“We’re beyond language now. We’re at the edge of the world, Mr. Crozier, save your prayers for that thing on the ice. I gave it a hundred and fifty dead men, and it made me God.”

“Your men should have saved you a slate and pencil from the wreckage. It’d serve you well to learn to count.”

Hickey doesn’t laugh or grin or bob his head; he does not thrust his tongue into his cheek, or spit and rave. What is behind his eyes is wholly dead, no longer human and opaque as ice. He parts his lips.

“You’ll be my first priest, I think. This place has waited a million years for me to come here. I have you to thank.”

With one stumbling motion he jerks the knife against his palm. At first Crozier thinks there is a broad slash of red there, like a magician’s silk scarf, but it is a single piercing wound in the heel of his hand and in the queer light the blood is more black than red. It wells up in the wound, but does not spill.

Hickey reaches out to swab his thumb across Crozier’s dirty forehead. Crozier smells the smell of it, and feels the sick warmth of it through the raw chapped leather of his own bare skin. He sways on his knees, and the little man smiles on him a lunatic smile. It is a blessing.

What is this man but a cast-off and a scrap, one of life’s piddling liars, a shirking fraud? Whatever may once have been inside of him has been hollowed out, like shaved wood. An empty vessel. He has mistaken nothingness for greatness, the great empty place inside himself for a great potentiality. Crozier has known that laggardly emptiness his whole life long, has sought to fill it one way or another, with drink or with grave duty. This man has been hungry all his life without ever knowing what that hunger meant, he is nothing but his sorry desires, and now the great white bear has come scenting weakened prey – the only thing with a bigger appetite. One day all this will be open water. Sir John ought to have died knowing that – one day, the Passage will be open to all the world.