Amberville - By Tim Davys Page 0,24

different points of view and after considerable anguish came to the conclusion that it was more probable that the Death List existed, in some form, than that it did not.

The weather was approaching midnight. Sam left his guests in the kitchen and went into the bathroom where, in one of the hollow feet of the bathtub, he stored the green tablets he usually took along with alcohol, and which provided a dreamless sleep. When he returned, Eric and Tom-Tom were no longer responsible for what they were saying.

“Death takes us all,” exclaimed Eric gloomily.

“Lanceheim LOSERS,” Tom-Tom cried out. “They ought to be called Lanceheim LOSERS and not Lasers.”

He was talking about the district cricket team. No one paid him any attention.

“You were always a sports nut, sweetheart,” said Sam sentimentally. “You always liked sports. I remember one time…one time…no…no…I don’t remember.”

Tom-Tom broke out in violent laughter.

“There’s no way out,” Eric continued on his introverted track. “Sooner or later it ends. That’s all we know.”

“And can you turn sooner into later, that is the question,” Snake interjected.

“A question many of my customers would gladly have an answer to,” Sam smiled hazily.

“You fucking creep,” snapped Snake.

“Listen up now,” said Tom-Tom threateningly. “You can be damn creepy yourself.”

Sam looked gratefully at the crow.

“Death,” said Eric, “is perhaps the start of the next life?”

“There’s a story,” said Snake, “of how a name was once removed from the Death List. That must be the one Dove’s heard.”

“I don’t know what story you’re thinking of,” said the bear, who if he’d been more sober would have noticed that Snake Marek—in contrast to the others—didn’t seem especially drunk.

“The one about Prodeacon…what was his name…Prodeacon Poodle?”

“I seem to think that I’ve heard it,” said Sam.

“I’ve never heard it,” said Eric firmly.

“If it’s something frigging dirty, I don’t want to hear it,” said Tom-Tom, who feared it was time to tell dirty stories. The crow had always felt uncomfortable where dirty stories were concerned.

“Prodeacon Trew Poodle lived just under one hundred years ago—he was prodeacon down here in Yok, and the story is about his goodness,” said Snake. “The three prodeacons in Amberville, Tourquai, and Lanceheim saw Trew as their spiritual leader, despite the fact that he was considerably younger and not at all as experienced as they. One night Trew called the other prodeacons to him and told them the unbelievable: all four of them were on the Death List. In just a week they would be picked up by the red wagons that were used at that time.”

“I’ve heard this story,” mumbled Sam.

“Prodeacon Trew could not let this happen,” Snake continued relentlessly.

This was Snake’s best routine, a long, morally instructive story; he’d used the story about Prodeacon Trew Poodle as a starting point in several novels over the years; it could symbolize just about anything.

“With a frenzy that astonished his three colleagues,” said Snake, “the prodeacon fell on his knees before the altar and started to pray. He prayed for their lives, he prayed to Magnus to spare them, he implored Him to remove them from the list.”

“Now I know,” said Sam. “Now I remember this.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Tom-Tom hesitantly. “So it’s Magnus who writes the list?”

“Prodeacon Poodle prays and prays,” Snake continued without letting himself be distracted, “while the prodeacons from Tourquai, Lanceheim, and Amberville hurry back to their respective parishes and devote themselves to more practical details. Who should succeed them, who should inherit their possessions, who should write their obituaries.”

“Vanity,” interjected Eric, and added, mostly to himself: “Not the least bit important.”

“However that might be,” snorted Snake, “Prodeacon Poodle prays for a week at a time while the others are busy with worldly things, and the following Sunday they meet again in Sagrada Bastante. And while they are standing there, discussing practicalities, the doors of the church open and in come the Coachmen.”

“The Coachmen?” wondered Tom-Tom.

“The Chauffeurs of that time, sweetheart,” explained Sam.

“The Coachmen pick up the prodeacon from Amberville, the prodeacon from Lanceheim and the prodeacon from Tourquai,” continued Snake.

“And the point of the story is that Magnus doesn’t hear prayers?” said Eric with surprise.

“Prodeacon Trew Poodle was also on the list,” said Snake. “That was why he was praying for the others’ lives, so that all the city’s four prodeacons wouldn’t disappear at the same time. But thanks to his unselfish prayer, he was the one whose name was removed.”

“What the hell, couldn’t he save the others?” asked Tom-Tom.

“It is told,” said Snake, “that at that time only one animal