The hull of the HMS Paragon creaked softly as it slowly crested another small, gentle wave. The wind blew cold, yet without intensity. The flag drooped sleepily at the mast. Most of the men slept below, with a skeleton crew present above deck ensuring the ship continued straight and avoided a collision. The only real threats in this part of the sea were icebergs, but even this far north, and as cold as it was, only one iceberg was visible at the edge of the horizon, floating harmlessly miles away.
The coast of Greenland long since receded behind them, and to their starboard, the dark outline of some northern island replaced it. They were long past Baffin, as well. The coast presented to the Paragon could have very well never been seen by western eyes, and thus, it was nameless to the Europeans. The crew of the Paragon, or more accurately the captain and cartographer, had the ability to name it once they returned to England, provided they made it back.
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Said cartographer, one Paden Kasey, looked out over the calm water towards the shore. He carefully plotted and mapped the waterways the Paragon took as it searched carefully for a way around the cold land and ice and headed towards the warm waters of the Pacific: the Northwest Passage. Many explorers before them failed, but Kasey felt confident. They came equipped with the finest maps and instruments England had to offer, sailed during summer, and possessed a disciplined and reliable crew.
This voyage will be different, Kasey thought. I can feel it.
Kasey felt drowsy.
I should be asleep by now.
Yawning, Kasey once more ran his sleepy gaze across the dark landmass to starboard. He wondered what he should name it. ‘Paden Island’ had a nice ring to it but so did ‘Wilma Island’, after his wife. He wished he were back home. He imagined himself triumphantly standing before Parliament clutching the first complete map of the world, receiving medals and words of honor for his bravery and...
Kasey blinked.
What was that...?
Kasey blinked again. Then rubbed his eyes. It was still there. He turned to the coxswain, who stood down the deck from him, holding the wheel steady in boredom.
“Coxswain!”
“Yes, Mr. Kasey?”
“Look a-starboard, and tell me what you see!”
The coxswain rolled his eyes. Kasey was a bit of an eccentric fellow, but he was still on of the expedition’s leaders, so...
The coxswain blinked.
“Sir, I think I see a light,” he responded slowly. They hadn’t seen a sign of civilization, or even humanity, for weeks.
“Light-ho!” came an excited call from the crow’s nest.
Within fifteen minutes, the entire crew gathered and peered curiously towards the shore.
From the distant, rough landscape of the northern shore, shining brightly at the base of a stunted mountain, was a harsh, yellow light. Kasey was dumbfounded. Were there people here? Were they natives? Or some lost settler colony? Maybe maroons from a shipwrecked schooner, like themselves, explorers looking for a Northwest Passage, only to find themselves stranded in the far north?
They could have struck an ice patch, taken on water, and had to abandon ship. Anytime but the dog days of summer in a particularly hot year, such as the time it was for Kasey now, procured extremely hazardous ice flows.
The light was bright... very bright. It seemed hard for it to be anything but a lighthouse, and yet, it was thought not even natives lived up here, so who could it be? The longer Kasey stared, the more and more he thought he made out smaller pinpricks, all surrounding the larger one. A city? Was it a fire?
After much debate and confusion, the captain gave the order to anchor the ship. The lookouts had a hard time identifying the source of the light, due to the surrounding abject darkness and the glare from the light. An order eventually decided to send a launch to shore, well-armed, to discover the source, and Kasey, after much convincing, finally persuaded the captain to let him join the launch.
