Free Bazil Broketail by Christopher Rowley

into the dark water was the Marneri lighthouse, its great lantern sweeping around every two minutes as it was pulled by a team of trained Cunfshon monkeys.
    Relkin felt his hopes for the future rising once more. With a few of the fabulous flowers he could earn at least ten pieces of silver from the wealthy folk who would attend the
Orchidia
at the Opera House. Then on the morrow he would buy the magical blood of the Cunfshon steerbat from old Rothercary and they would re-grow Baz’s tail.
    There was no lock, the owner had never imagined that anyone would climb the tower like this to steal her flowers. The greenhouse door opened easily and Relkin slipped in. A brazier’s heat kept it steamy and tropical inside with the curious peppery scent of some black liver plants that grew in a tank on one side.
    On the other side were the orchids. And what beauties they were! Long, pendulous-lobed petals bore exquisite shades of yellow and pink, now dusted pale with moonlight. They were the most beautiful blooms Relkin had ever seen.
    He opened his satchel and began to pull the orchid plants out of their pots. Keeping a small amount of the moist matting around their roots, he wrapped each plant in a tissue of mattaleaf and thrust it into the satchel until he had a dozen or more. He closed the satchel, swung it over his shoulder, opened the greenhouse door once more and stepped out.
    All was as it had been with one exception. He was no longer alone on the balcony. An ape dog wearing a thick-spiked collar was sniffing along the area of the balcony rail that he’d climbed across.
    Relkin tiptoed quickly in the other direction.
    The balcony came to an end. There was a long jump to the next one. The ape dog began a horrific howling and barking. Relkin could hear its claws skittering along the stones as it charged. He panicked, jumped awkwardly, and slipped on the neighboring balcony rail and almost fell to his death. Only the fact that his legs were astraddle the balcony saved him, and he landed with punishing force with his feet on either side. The breath went out of him, but he managed to topple inside the rail before fainting.
    He returned to consciousness too soon. He was still struggling to breathe, his testicles ached. It was hard just getting to his knees. Even harder to gather up his satchel.
    Before he had achieved that much, however, he was interrupted. The doors to the balcony opened and a figure stepped out. Relkin stared up into the face of a slender woman with lank grey hair and exhausted eyes, wrapped in a brown blanket against the cold. In her right hand glittered a foot-long knife which she kept pointed at his throat.
    For a long moment she simply stared at him. Was this a harmless child, or some deadly thing from the enemy?
    “What do you do here?” she said at last, using the witch voice that would compel his answer.
    “I stole orchids from the greenhouse,” he said. His reply astonished him with its sudden frankness.
    “Why?”
    “To sell at the performance of the
Orchidia
. To get the money for a magic to re-grow the tail of my dragon.”
    “A dragonboy?”
    “Yes,” he said, not knowing quite why he answered so simply and truthfully. There was something about this haggard-looking woman that compelled honesty from him.
    She also held the long knife in a manner that suggested that she knew how to use it. The steel glittered; he watched it, entranced.
    “Come inside, you’ll sit while I decide what to do with you.”
    Relkin felt something lift off his mind, almost like a heavy cloak. His urge for self-preservation surged to the fore.
    “Ah, wouldn’t it be much simpler if I just carried on and climbed down the wall?”
    She turned to stare at him; her eyes were most peculiar, they seemed to bore into one’s head.
    “Inside! I’ll not have common thievery wreaked across the tower. The flowers must go back to the person who has taken such pains to grow them. It is difficult to grow these tropical blooms in