The Deserter's Tale

The crewman recounted Captain Isabella had been sick on the voyage… but he was more concerned with the prisoner she had brought aboard. “A devil given flesh,” he called him, and he crossed himself as he did. The crew man was convinced the man was a curse, that he had been responsible for the ills that beset the voyage. I pressed him on this, and said the man had been a guide… and had led us to Aeternum at Isabella's request. “Aye,” the man replied. “I think he knew the way here, but he didn't mean for all of us. He's been here before, that much is true. But he didn't lead us here for azoth or gold or even to help us… he brought us here for some other cause, and there was no grace in his act.” Chief Pilot Keyes of the San Cristóbal