Amberville - By Tim Davys Page 0,7

curious by nature, he thought. That was their joy, and their misfortune.

The four districts of the city, distinct in their differences, competed at being the largest. In the past they had been independent villages, but they had grown together inexorably and been forced to share resources. Amberville’s bourgeois prosperity; Tourquai’s hectic urban life; Lanceheim, which remained a city within the city; and, finally, Yok, which with each year in the present century had grown to be a greater and greater problem for the city’s administration. Today in each of the city’s districts there lived more than a million stuffed animals, of all types and colors, dispositions and mentalities. Sometimes he saw himself as their puppet master; it was a matter of power and control. If he closed his eyes he could envision four million thin threads running from his brain, binding each and every animal in his city.

Pride, he thought. A mortal sin.

The cat who spilled the beans, the cat who had tattled to Nicholas Dove…the thought made him furious. Unconsciously his muscles tensed and he grabbed hold of the arm of the chair. The thought that such an insignificant animal, such a fool, had been able to upset a circle…that the almost perfect world he’d built—not for himself but for everyone—might crack apart so easily…that over the years he’d become so spoiled and lazy that he no longer worried…let himself be taken by surprise…surprised by something as obvious as…the spinelessness of stuffed animals.

He shook his head.

He breathed slowly.

He was forced to turn the argument around so as not to explode. Without insignificant errors like this thing with the cat, he thought, life would be all too easy. If chance didn’t remain his opponent, who would be able to challenge him? Standing here, cursing the cat, led nowhere. The time for action had come.

CHAPTER 4

Along sky-blue South Avenue and mint-green East Avenue, the district of Yok reminded a careless observer of the well-cared-for townhouses in Amberville. After a few moments of scrutiny the differences became apparent. In expectation of good times that never came, the landlords had evicted their impoverished renters. The hope was for new, wealthier animals, but no one like that appeared. The years passed, the unoccupied buildings fell into disrepair, and finally they were so decrepit that the owners no longer had the means to keep them up. Especially now, because they had evicted the renters who up till then had provided them with their sole source of income.

In time the buildings along South and East Avenues came to be regarded as the boundary line between a functioning and a nonfunctioning society. Many had business in Yok, because both the Ministries of Finance and Culture had chosen to relocate certain aspects of their operations there for social reasons. Visitors took the bus along the deep-blue Avinguda de Pedrables, the street that flows from north to south like a broad river through that part of the city.

Those who lived in the chaos of streets running in all directions without name or number, the stuffed animals who made decrepit or improvised buildings their miserable homes, would all have moved to Tourquai, Amberville, or Lanceheim if they’d had the opportunity. No one chose of their own free will to live with the stench from the overloaded sewer system and the garbage fermenting in the streets. No one enjoyed the insecurity, the unpredictable aggressiveness of the homeless, or the fistfights and gunfire that were part of everyday life there. It was easy to hide in Yok, to lie low year after year without the risk of being discovered. In the food stores, on the streets, or in the bars, it was wisest to look only at the person you were talking to, or even better: at nothing at all. The inhabitants of this part of the city knew how to take care of themselves, ignore others, and secretly hope to get a chance one day to leave Yok for good.

Eric Bear and Tom-Tom Crow left Grand Divino, crossed the mint-green avenue, and took the way into Yok via Rue d’Uzès. Eric had written down the address on a slip of paper that was in his pants pocket: 152 Yiala’s Arch. They walked rather quickly. The crow had always felt uncomfortable in Yok’s decrepit poverty; he had grown up in Tourquai. He was the cub as well as grandcub of a long line of successful shopkeepers. He was slurping on a bag of salty pretzel sticks he’d brought with him from the