![]() You sailed your boat to the wrong shore.” He made a quick, deadly gesture with his small sword to the island around them, the dark stones and trees with branches like bared claws. “Make a man of me, will you? Oh no, oh no. The boy started to laugh, a high lovely laugh that wavered between a baby’s gurgle and the peal of bells. “And the Queen needs-someone of such talents for a job.” 69 was very highly trained, and also a gifted amateur poker player. “My talents are special! So awfully special!” The boy spun around in a circle, like a ballerina with a sword in zero gravity. He had been raised in diplomatic circles. ![]() A boy of your special talents,” 69 said smoothly. The boy hissed like a vampire exposed to the sunlight, lifting his free arm as if to protect himself from the word. “She feels that the Service has a need for a man-” “Her Majesty the Queen,” 69 said with a trifle more emphasis than was necessary. “The Majesty,” the boy said, waving his sword vaguely. “I am here on a mission from her Majesty.” “I am afraid I do not have time to indulge you,” 69 said. More to the point, he was holding a sword as if he knew how to use it, and floating about a yard above the ground. The boy before him was beautiful in a slightly terrible way, like a kiss with no innocence in it. There was a barely perceptible shift in the air before his face, but the men and women in Her Majesty’s Secret Service are extremely highly trained. Under his feet, and under a layer of the black grease of age and filth were pebbles like jewels, and children’s toys, and human bones. He took a few purposeful steps along the shore to the forest, then looked down. This was a subject of many tasteless jokes in the Service, but nobody would have known that from 69’s serious face and his extremely dapper black suit. Unfortunately for him, his number was 69. ![]() ![]() They had given him a number, and taken away his name. When the boat sliced through water to white sand, the man stepped out of it. After a few minutes, a man emerged from the submarine and got into a boat, one not at all like the children’s boats arrayed on the shore. The submarine drifted to a stop not far from the island, the periscope breaking the surface of the water like the lifted nose of an inquisitive pointer dog. Even the sound of the waves and the mermaids singing.īut the men in her Majesty’s Secret Service can go anywhere. The dark sea rushes up to the pale beach and just touches the crafts, making them rattle together with a sound like bones. The children have stopped coming now, and their little boats are tipped over on the sides, like the abandoned shells of nuts eaten long ago. There is a magic shore where children used to beach their coracles every night. ![]()
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