Free Amberville by Tim Davys

glance toward her and shrugged his shoulders.
    “I suppose it can wait until tomorrow,” he said.
    “No, no. If they’ve said it’s important that you should come, then of course you should take off.”
    Eric phoned the office before he left the house. It was right after the wind stopped blowing during the Afternoon Weather, but Wolle and Wolle almost never left the office before midnight. Eric told them the same story, that he had to spend the coming week with his twin brother, Teddy, and that therefore he couldn’t come in other than for exceptional reasons. There was a meeting on Wednesday afternoon he was thinking of, and one on Thursday morning, but more than that he couldn’t promise. Wolle and Wolle promised to cover for him. And thus Eric had freed himself from his marital as well as his professional duties. He departed toward Yok and Yiala’s Arch; it was time to find the Death List, even if it didn’t exist.

CHAPTER 7
    S nake Marek knocked on the door to Sam’s apartment at grass-green Yiala’s Arch just as the breeze started blowing and the Evening Weather began. The friends didn’t make an event of the fact that he came. Tom-Tom Crow was standing in the kitchen, shaking an enormous cocktail shaker; Sam and Eric were out on the balcony, talking. The crow let the snake in, and after a guarded nod, Snake wriggled out through the balcony door. He made his way up onto a rusty table that had presumably been on the balcony when Sam moved in and wheedled his way into the conversation. When Tom-Tom joined the friends after a little while, Sam cleared his throat solemnly.
    “It’s time to make a toast,” he said as the crow poured cocktails, “to a reunion. And to success, of course. And to time, which hasn’t made us uglier or older, simply wiser and”—Sam winked at Snake—“more cunning.”
    And with his tinkling-bell giggle Sam raised his glass. The others did the same, and the cool alcohol warmed their frozen souls. As always, the evening was lovelier than it was warm.
    “I’m extremely grateful,” said Eric, “that you’re willing to help. And I was thinking that we might devote the evening to trying to figure out how we should go about our task. You know what it’s about. The dove believes he’s on the Death List, and he wants us to remove his name. An impossible task, it might seem. But we’ve done the impossible before. So just let it flow. No suggestion is wrong, no associations too far-fetched…”
    Sam giggled again.
    “…except the indecent,” added Eric.
    Everyone laughed, Snake with a contemptuous sneer.
    “But, what the hell,” said Tom-Tom, stealing a glance at Sam as the laughter subsided, “is there really a Death List?”
    “Darling, you’re so clever,” said Sam shrewdly. “Or what, Marek? The crow is sharp!”
    Snake’s head swayed back and forth, indicating his ambivalence. He was much too gloomy to let himself be provoked. He had been forced to leave the ministry, but no one could force him to be happy about being at Yiala’s Arch.
    But before anyone had time to comment on the Death List’s existence or lack thereof, the sound of a broken bottle was heard in the Dumpster down in the courtyard. Up on the balcony all four of them felt ashamed. Here they stood like rank amateurs, discussing secrets so that everyone could hear. Quietly they finished their glasses, went inside, and sat down around the deplorably moldy kitchen table.
    “What do you say?” said Eric to Snake as Tom-Tom set vodka, juice, and ice out on the table. “Is there a Death List?”
    “Rumors about the Death List have always flourished,” replied Snake. “You can find references to a Death List in poetic refrains written hundreds of years ago. It has been maintained that the list is depicted on each of the three frescoes of the Preachers on the ceiling of Sagrada Bastante, butin actual size so that it is impossible to see it from the floor. It is said that the Twenty-Years War was