Tales of the Hidden World by Simon R. Green Read Free Book Online

team! And we’ll never be parted again.”
    The Armourer looked at him and nodded slowly. “It’s over here, isn’t it?”
    James smiled. “You’ve done all you can, here. Time to go. You didn’t think I’d leave you to make the last great journey on your own, did you?”
    “Do I get to rest at last?” said the Armourer.
    “Where would be the fun in that?” said James. “We have better and far more important work waiting for us now! And far more fun than you’ve ever known. . . . Come along, James. It’s time to do things that really matter.”
    He put out a hand to the Armourer, who clasped it with his own. And just like that Jack and James stood together, both of them young and in their prime again. They laughed out loud and hugged each other fiercely.
    “Good work?” said Jack. “Work that really matters? Lead me to it!”
    And then he paused, and looked at his brother.
    “What is it?” said James.
    “Can you answer the question?” said James. “Did I do more important work as a field agent, or working here in the Armory?”
    “You already know the answer,” said James, kindly. “Anything, for the family. You always did good work, Jack, and everything you did was designed to save people’s lives, in the long run. And that is all that matters.”
    The two young men walked forward through the Armory, and lab assistants came forward from all sides to form two great crowds for them to walk through. Ranks and ranks of faces, smiling and waving to the Armourer as he passed. And he knew all their faces, and all their names, even the ones who’d left the Armory long ago. They were all there to say good-bye to him. The Armourer hadn’t realized how many lives he’d touched.
    A dog ran forward to greet them and danced eagerly in front of Jack.
    “Is that you, Scraps?” said Jack.
    “Of course,” said James. “Everyone you ever lost is waiting to meet you again.”
    Jack and James Drood, reunited at last, walked on together and never looked back once.
    Maxwell and Victoria found the Armourer sitting slumped in his chair at his desk. Quite dead. Maxwell checked for life signs, didn’t find any, and sent the nearest lab assistant hurrying off to inform the Matriarch. Maxwell and Victoria looked at the dead man.
    “At least he died still working,” said Maxwell.
    “He gave his life to the Armory,” said Victoria.
    It must have seemed like a nice thing to say.
    W hat better way to start off a collection of stories than with an upbeat piece about death? The Armourer, Jack Drood, is a long-standing character from my Secret Histories novels first introduced some ten years ago, in The Man with the Golden Torque. He was an old man even then and has grown increasingly frail ever since, and it just seemed the right time to let him go. Jack Drood never really got the same respect as his more famous brother, James Drood, the Gray Fox, but he was a major player in the Cold War and a great secret agent in his own right. I wanted to show him at the end of his life, looking back and trying to decide whether he did more good for his family, and Humanity, as a field agent fighting the bad guys, or as an Armourer producing weapons and devices to keep other agents alive. I wanted to give him one last big adventure.

Street Wizard
    I believe in magic . It’s my job.
    I’m a street wizard, and I work for the London City Council. I don’t wear a pointy hat, I don’t live in a castle, and no one in my line of work has used a wand since tights went out of fashion. I’m paid the same money as a traffic warden, and I don’t even get a free uniform. I just get to clean up other people’s messes and prevent trouble when I can. It’s a magical job, but someone’s got to do it.
    My alarm goes off at nine o’clock sharp every evening, and that’s when my day begins. When the sun’s already sliding down the sky toward evening, with night pressing close on its heels. I do all the usual things everyone else does at the