Not far away a shaven-headed Nyissan stood leaning against a wall, staring at his hand and giggling senselessly. "I can see right through my fingers," he announced in a hissing lisp. "Right through them."

"Drunk?" Hettar asked.

"Not exactly," Aunt Pol answered. "Nyissans have peculiar amusements - leaves, bernes, certain roots. Their perceptions get modified. It's a bit more serious than the common drunkenness one finds among Alorns."

Another Nyissan shambled by, his gait curiously jerky and his expression blank.

"Doth this condition prevail widely?" Mandorallen asked.

"I've never met a Nyissan yet who wasn't at least partially drugged," Aunt Pol said. "It makes them difficult to talk to. Isn't that the house we're looking for?" She pointed at a solid building across the street.

There was an ominous rumble of thunder off to the south as they crossed to the large house. A Drasnian servant in a linen tunic answered their knock, let them into a dimly lighted antechamber, and told them to wait.

"An evil city," Hettar said quietly. "I can't see why any Alorn in his right mind would come here willingly."

"Money," Captain Greldik replied shortly. "The Nyissan trade is very profitable."

"There are more important things than money," Hettar muttered.

An enormously fat man came into the dim room. "More light," he snapped at his servant. "You didn't have to leave them here in the dark."

"You said that the lamps just made it hotter," the servant protested in a surly tone. "I wish you'd make up your mind."

"Never mind what I said; just do as I say."

"The climate's making you incoherent, Droblek," the servant noted acidly. He lit several lamps and left the room muttering to himself.

"Drasnians make the world's worst servants," Droblek grumbled.

"Shall we get down to business?" He lowered his vast bulk into a chair. The sweat rolled continually down his face and into the damp collar of his brown silk robe.

"My name's Greldik," the bearded seaman said. "I've just arrived at your wharves with a shipload of goods belonging to the merchant, Radek of Boktor." He presented the folded packets of parchment.

Droblek's eyes narrowed. "I didn't know that Radek was interested in the southern trade. I thought he dealt mostly in Sendaria and Arendia."

Greldik shrugged indifferently. "I didn't ask him. He pays me to carry his goods in my ship, not to ask questions about his business."

Droblek looked at them all, his sweating face expressionless. Then his fingers moved slightly.-Is everything here what it seems to be? The Drasnian secret language made his fat fingers suddenly nimble.

Can we speak openly here? Aunt Pol's fingers asked him. Her gestures were stately, somehow archaic. There was a kind of formality to her movements that Garion had not seen in the signs made by others.

As openly as anyplace in this pest-hole - Droblek replied,-You have a strange accent, lady. There's something about it that it seems I should remember- '