The tibia slid from rock to stone with the smooth, seamless grace of a galumphing walrus, nicking thrice-nicked epicondyles and chipping its shaft and visiting all manner of unspeakables upon innocent bone the likes of which it had all seen at least four times previously, so it was quite all right. Eventually it spun to a gentle stop at William’s feet.
He looked at it. It was the first thing he’d seen for half a hundred miles that wasn’t a rock or ice, so he felt he owed it that much.
“Hello there.”
William looked up and saw the first human he’d met for half a thousand miles. At least, it was probably a human. Last he’d heard nobody’s brought any chimpanzees up this way, let alone any completely bald ones.
It waved at him.
“Hello,” said William. “How are you?”
“Tolerably well, tolerably well,” said the thing on its rock-pile. “I’d be better off still if you’d care to toss that bone of mine back up here. It is my favorite and I miss it so dearly.”
William shrugged, kicked the battered piece of humanity six times until it popped up into his fumbling left-handed grasp, then gave it a gentle underhand toss. It smacked into the thing’s forehead with a sound like a melon being dropped in a basket and sent it gently cartwheeling down the same path that the bone had so recently taken, with even less elegance.
“Ow,” it said eventually.
“I’m sorry.”
The thing waved a hand. “Think nothing of it. The view up there was growing dreary anyways. Oh, my manners! I am nobody of nowhere in particular. And yourself?”
“Will McKenzie,” said William. “Have you seen the northwest passage?”
It squinted to itself. “Oh! That! I was looking for that! That was a while ago, of course. Before I found my bone and built my seat. I was much busier back then, all hurry hurry hurry. No time for rest nor chat nor bone. It’s no wonder my own quit on me, you know? I certainly never gave them a break. Why I’ll have you know I’d barely placed the keystone of my chair in place before my own two legs up and left me behind, the treacherous snakes, and my left arm soon followed. Of course, that was a few long times ago. But I digress: what’s your name again?”
“Will,” said William. “Have you seen the northwest passage or not?”
“Oh! That! I was looking for that! That was a while ago, of course. Before I lost my head and found my legs. Well you see hey now where are you going?”
“The northwest passage,” repeated William, adjusting the hauling straps across his shoulders. They were huge thick things that very nearly became a second coat where they crossed his chest.
“With that great sledge? You’ll never make it, take it from me. My sledge was twice as big and there were dogs on it. And now I don’t have dogs or a sledge and look at how well it’s all turned out for me, eh?”
William looked at how it had turned out for him. One of the rocks on the seat teetered and slowly made its way downwards, landing with inevitable but gentle force on the thing’s freshly-swelling cranial bruise.
“Do you think I could tag along? Please?”
The sledge was stuck on a rock.
“Pull on it.”
William pulled.
“No, no, no! Push it! You’ve got to push it!”
William pushed.
“Oh dear that won’t do that won’t do at all, at ALL! Wiggle it up and down, up and down!”
William wiggled it up and down.
“Maybe left to right then?”
The sledge’s runner snapped off with a tired squeak.
The thing shrugged. “Well, it was a good try. When’s lunch?”
William squinted at the horizon, where the sun hadn’t risen in three months. “Now,” he decided.
They sat down to eat, William with his bulky and inopenable canned food, the thing with its bone. It gnawed on it happily, gums smearing with love across familiar grooves so ancient that they half looked to have started healing over.
William had something better than bones. He had canned food. Modern. Lead-sealed. Air-tight. Unspoilable. Each had enough basic nutrition to keep a man three times his weight walking for three times as long as William could walk, which if William could still do math correctly was nine hours and six pounds four pence. He asked the thing, to be sure.
“Sounds good to me,” it said. “How’s it taste?”
William’s brow furrowed. “Don’t know. Can’t open them.”
“Oh. So what’ve you been eating?”
“The lead seal,” said William. “Soft. Chewy.”
The thing nodded thoughtfully. “Huh. So it is. It reminds me of the days when there was marrow in my bones, back before I found my other bone. That was a while ago, of course. I had a crew, a crew of men, human men, human men who spoke the same language as me and thought the same thoughts as me and laughed at the same jokes as me and grew their beards just like mine. Those were fine days, back when we had days. I think we had days then, now the sun just seems to go up and down.”
“What happened?” asked William.
The thing shrugged. “I can’t remember. But I don’t think it was very nice. We were on a job to find something very impressive.”
“The northwest passage.”
“Right! That! I was looking for that! That was a while ago, of course, when-“
William inserted the bone gently into the thing’s face, where it began to gnaw happily. Little flecks of bone dust came loose from its jaw in its enthusiasm.
They made camp that night by the wreckage of three schooners, each one slightly smaller than the other. It was the first fire William had seen in a hundred days and nights, and he had the thing to thank for it: whenever he tried to bend at the waist unbearable pain lanced through his hips up to his heart and his vision turned black with purple highlights.
“Purple?” asked the thing, dangling from his arms as firewood dangled from its arms. “What’s that?”
William pursed his lips – cracking open a dozen fissures in his skin in the process, which slowly coagulated with red matter in the subzero air – and considered the question.
“Like blue,” he said.
“Like blue?”
“But more red.”
“Huh. What’s a red?”
William pointed at his sores. The thing looked.
“Oh,” it said. “That. That’s funny! Haven’t seen that in a while. That was a while ago, of course. When I was looking for the northwest passage. Have you seen the place? Awful nice. I took the sea route, of course, but then the boat got stuck. That was a while ago, of course. A while ago, of course. A while ago. A while ago, of course. A while ago, of course. It was a while ago a while ago a while ago, of course it was a while ago, of course.”
It blinked.
“Excuse me. But yes, it was a while ago, of course. Are you headed there?”
“Yes. Where is it?”
“Right behind. Forty miles.”
William craned his neck over his shoulder. “I didn’t see.”
“Really? It was right there.”
“You could have said.”
“No I couldn’t. My lips were stuck together and I didn’t want to make a fuss.”
William sighed, a deep and elemental force that welled up from within the tattered leather bags that had once been his boots, or maybe his feet.
“Thinking of quitting, eh lad? Don’t be like that. You’re almost there. Go on, up and get ‘em, chin-first. The early bird worms the day is won. Come on now, let’s be off. Do you need a slap on the back to get you going?”
“Yes please.”
The thing’s hand came down against leather with a firm whack, sending a knuckle bouncing away over the lonely stones, already powder as it cartwheeled. William hiccoughed, spat out a tooth, and hitched up his harness once again.
“Come on.”
The sledge had been left a good fifteen miles back. The last runner had come a cropper sixteen earlier.
“Up and at ‘em.”
The cans had had to be left behind. William had tried to put some in his pockets, but he’d eaten his pockets a month ago in an effort to stave off scurvy with the lichen that had become enmeshed in their fabric. He’d put one in his mouth instead, and discovered that its contents had leaked out months ago. Even the lead solder had rubbed off.
“Go on, you. Go on!”
His left hand was making a godawful racket. The thing was in it, that was the problem. It had gotten very annoyed when he tried to leave it with the sledge, and the way he’d fallen over right after he’d uncoupled the harness seemed to be making it very angry.
“Look now what a world it would be if we all gave up like this. I gave up myself, you could too, but that was a while ago NOT NOW come on and get moving, you’re better than this!”
His right hand was much quieter. He preferred his right hand. It hadn’t moved more than dancing in the breeze since the sixth week he’d worn the harness, but it kept clenched tight around its burden and didn’t smell too badly. The salt air was doing wonders for it, when there was air instead of ice-wind.
Two things occurred to William then. First, that he must be dying. Second, that he hadn’t used his brain this much in more than a year. He wondered if the two were related at all.
“Up! Up for goodness’s sakes and peas and rice and all the little fish! You’re HERE! You’re at the northwest passage! UP!”
“Can’t see it,” said William.
“That’s because your eyes are shut, and you aren’t clever like me. I can see right through my eyelids! You can’t! Stop making me talk loudly, it hurts my throat and I don’t have much left to hurt! Go on! Get up! Go on! UP!”
William used the burden in his left hand to steady himself, opened his eyes, and took one more breath.
He was standing on a cold, icy, rock-strewn shore. Behind him was ice. Ahead of him was ice. Farther on was a bit more ice. But the little compass that dangled on his gutted lapel and the head full of rotted charts told him that this particular ice was ice nobody had ever seen before.
Well, nobody from… home. Had ever seen before. Yes.
Oh, that was right. He’d better hurry.
“Hello? Can you see it?”
No time for that. William dropped his left hand – ignoring the protests that resulted – and applied it to his right. With a vigorous yank he removed it, along with its burden, and struck the stony gravel masquerading as dirt with as much force as he could muster.
Fwip, and the cold breeze took it. The flag flared in its grip like a little second sky. The salt and cold had bleached it blanker than a blanket.
“Iclaimthisinthenameof-“ said William, and then that breath ran out and he died.
For a while he stood there very sturdily, then the cold breeze took him. Fwip.
Thud.
“Ow!”
“This reminds me of back when I had a seat. That was a while ago, of course.”