“If you did find the cause of the deaths of the pregnant women, please tell me about it, would you?” she asks. Tirad accepts and goes out of the door. Dalia and Pejhan are not there. The guard tells him Dalia is on the boat and so is Narivan’s body. Tirad climbs the stairs and reaches the deck. He looks up at the sky. It is near the dusk. He hadn’t sensed the time passing. He goes to the deck ladder with the guard. Dalia is waiting for her down on the water, in their boat.

Chapter 28

Armina was right about the documents. Tirad keeps reading the list of all the transactions. Everyone is involved except for him, Hurmaz and a few newly third tier disciples like Farnab. He can’t believe Khunas has been the head of all the dived out iron and metals and the black market that was founded a few years ago. Tirad remembers that people were told there was no more iron left to be mined and dived out from the drowned city of Tehran, and the price of all metals had risen. He keeps on reading the list. The Oxan naval had taken ten thousand coins from Akhgar to store the smuggled metals, to be sold later on, three times their original price. The import of fabrics and cotton also shocks him. Everyone knew the import was reduced in the last five years to the extent that people couldn’t find or afford new fabrics. Tirad and the rest of the Saviour Ship residents were reusing and wearing the old sailcloths all this time, while he reads now that the Arash Ship have been stocking the imported fabrics from Atlan and they still haven’t released them to the market. And of course when they do, the prices would be so high that no one would be able to afford buying fabrics, except for the chiefs of Oxan and the Saviour Ship dealers. He reads on. The black market for chicken and vegetables are in the hands of Oxan chiefs who have been paying the Saviour Ship to turn the other eye. Tirad knows now why Mart was so friendly with them at the dinner table on his one night stay in Oxan. The next line is about an order that has been placed for the purchase of a large amount of boat fuels. It surprises Tirad since the Saviour Ship doesn’t have that many boats. Why would they need to place such an order and store the fuel in the Oxan storehouses? The next line explains this… The order put for the procurement of two hundred fishing boats and three hundred passenger boats that could carry fifteen people. What is the use of all these boats? he wonders. There are so many bought and stored goods, but at the top of the list with the highest quantity is guns and ammunition! This worries Tirad. The orders for the guns and ammos are placed in the names of Mart and Akhgar and are to be sent directly to the Saviour Ship. Most of the purchases are not from Ataln. They have been dealing with other islands that Tirad doesn’t know much about them. He didn’t know they were even in business with such islands. So many boats, fuels, guns and ammos are not bought to create a black market; they have a more impersonal use, perhaps a dangerous purpose.