A Crown Imperiled by Raymond E. Feist Page B

the gate no one could be seen. The massive city gates had been left open.
    ‘Be ready,’ said Sandreena, then she realized that was an obvious thing to say. ‘Nervous, I guess.’
    ‘As are we all,’ said Pug, reassuringly.
    They entered and saw three Pantathians waiting for them, not armoured warriors, but wearing robes unlike the ritual dress of any Serpent Priests Pug had encountered before. Their clothing was colourful and made of a fine weave and intricate design, decorated with fancy thread and bead-work.
    Pug came to a halt a few feet away from them. These three were like the dead Pug’s party had encountered in the river valley, and the soldiers who had sallied from the city; they bore only a superficial resemblance to the Pantathians Pug had encountered years before. These people had more pronounced foreheads, and their skulls were less reptilian.
    ‘Can you understand me?’ Pug spoke in the common trading tongue, assuming it would most likely be the only human language to have reached this remote island.
    ‘We do,’ answered the serpent man in the centre. His accent was odd, but not impossible to comprehend. ‘But I find common speak a bit cumbersome, and prefer to use Keshian,’ he said in perfectly unaccented Keshian.
    Pug couldn’t hide his surprise. He, Sandreena, and Amirantha to a lesser degree, all understood Keshian; the Sergeant-Knight Adamant had lived in Kesh for years and the dominant language of Amirantha’s homeland was closely related to that tongue.
    ‘We come seeking answers,’ said Pug.
    In a remarkably human-like change of expression, the speaker said, ‘Is that not true of us all? Come. You do not find us at our best. We’ve struggled for a long time against those you banished.’
    ‘Demons,’ said Sandreena.
    The speaker turned to regard the armoured woman. ‘You have knowledge of the creatures, I assume?’
    ‘More than I would like,’ she answered.
    ‘Well, then we have a great deal to discuss; until a few weeks ago, we were ignorant of them. Please, follow me. I am Tak’ka, elected Autarch of Pantathia.’ He and his two companions turned and led Pug and his companions deeper into the city.
    ‘Is this place Pantathia?’ asked Pug as he walked beside Tak’ka.
    ‘That is what you humans call it. It’s a variant of the Lower Delkian dialect, meaning “Home of Snake-Men”. You could not pronounce our name in our own tongue, so Pantathia will serve.’ He motioned for them to follow. As they walked, he glanced sideways and at last asked, ‘You are the one they call Pug?’
    If Pug hadn’t already been surprised by what they had encountered, he was now openly taken aback. ‘Yes,’ he said.
    ‘I thought you’d be taller,’ mused the Pantathian. ‘My people have very strong feelings about you, and they are not all good, I’m afraid.’
    As they reached the centre of the small city, Pug was astonished by the scene before him. Like many cities in Kesh and the Kingdom, the main plaza was large and square with a fountain at its centre. Stalls stood against the buildings around its edge, and free-standing booths completely filled the rest of it. Only two paths permitted easy passage through the area.
    ‘Usually, we only have this much clutter on market days, but with the coming of the Hell-bringers many farmers, traders, and woodsmen have been forced to come here. It’s more of a refugee camp now than a market.’
    Pug marvelled at the people with every step. Every eye turned on them and many voices fell silent as they walked past. The people whispered in their sibilant language and Pug suspected that the Autarch was right; it would indeed be too difficult for human vocal cords to master their language. He used more than a century of observational skills to assess the scene as they made their way through the crowd. Rather than animalistic creatures, he now saw them as a crowd of people no more or less diverse and threatening than the population of any small human