A ghastly, young maid knocks and comes in. She addresses Mart, while she tries to catch her breath. Mart asks what has happened.

“The roof of the warehouse has fallen…the workers are trapped under the rubble…” she says with a shortened breath. Mart gets up and walks towards the door, cursing loudly.

Chapter 30

The sun is setting but there is still enough light in the sky, not to turn on the flashlights. Three guards have come down from the Parsana Ship to the platform. They check the ill passengers of the newly arrived boat and lead them up the ladder. Those who are too sick to walk have to wait for the stretcher to pull them up in turns. They tell each patient, the estimated cost of their treatment and the medicine, how long they need to stay and the cost of their accommodation. One of them looks at Lealy and tells her there is nothing they could do for her burn marks. Lealy knows that already but she doesn’t want to tell them why she is here. She had hid herself being a healer for the ten-day trip on the boat that was stretched three more days because of the heavy rains and storms. If they knew she was a healer, she had to tend to all the fifteen passengers on the boat and she couldn’t pull it off; these passengers were not just ill, they were incurable by all the healers of the lands and the ships, and they were going to Parsana in hope of some cure that could postpone their near death. One of them had died in the journey and his body was thrown into the sea. Lealy steps towards the ladder under the shower rain. She puts her right foot on the slippery steel step, being careful not to fall. Her right leg has big, red burn marks and wrinkled skin. She has lost a lot weight after the Oxan fire; still she can hardly pull her weight up the ladder. She is trying not to slip down the steel ladder steps, soaked with rain and she is also trying to hold on to her bag. She finally climbs up and steps onto the deck.

The Parsana healers are standing on the deck; they examine the ill passengers and choose their patients among them, leading them to their treating cabins. The oldest healer comes to Lealy. She looks at her burn mark that starts from under her right ear, spirals down her right side to her arm and stretches beneath her knee. She asks Lealy to open her mouth and looks into her throat with the help of a small torch that lights up Lealy’s mouth. She then takes Lealy’s palm and examines it closely. She shakes her head and repeats what the guard had already told her; they can’t help her with anything, she looks healthy enough to her and her burnt skin has healed well. She asks Lealy if she has any pains or problems that don’t show and Lealy says no. Ashid looks at her tear stained eyes and the burn mark again that seems like a snake moving down her body devouring her skin. The burn mark has destroyed the tattoo on her arm, making it unable to say whether she comes from sea or land. Ashid asks her to open her bag and show her its contents. Lealy shows the few bottles of medicine, a few folded cloths, a comb and a mirror, a leather band and a few papers.