The Gentleman Bastard Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulder, then pushed him quite enthusiastically up the steps toward the Eyeless Priest. As the white-robed boys carried the jangling copper bowl past him, the Thiefmaker tossed a small leather purse into it, spread his arms wide, and bowed with his characteristic serpentine theatricality. The last Locke saw of him, he was moving rapidly across the Temple District with his crooked arms and bony shoulders rolling gaily: the strut of a man set free.
    9
    THE SANCTUARY of the Temple of Perelandro was a musty stone chamber with several puddles of standing water; the mold-eaten tapestries on the walls were rapidly devolving into their component threads. It was lit only by the pastel glare of Falselight and the halfhearted efforts of a frosted white alchemical globe perched precariously in a fixture just above the steel plate that chained the Eyeless Priest to the sanctuary wall. Locke saw a curtained doorway on the back wall, and nothing else.
    “Calo, Galdo,” said Father Chains, “be good lads and see to the doors, will you?”
    The two robed boys set down the copper kettle and moved to one of the tapestries. Working together, they swept it aside and pulled at a concealed device. Some great mechanism creaked in the sanctuary walls, and the twin doors leading out to the temple steps began to draw inward. When they finished sliding together with the scrape of stone against stone, the alchemical globe suddenly flared into brighter luminescence.
    “Now,” said the Eyeless Priest as he knelt, letting a great deal of slack chain gather in little steel mounds about him, “come over here, Locke Lamora, and let’s see if you have any of the gifts necessary to become an initiate of this temple.”
    With Father Chains on his knees, Locke and he were roughly forehead to forehead. In response to Chains’ beckoning hands, Locke stepped close and waited. The priest wrinkled his nose.
    “I see that your former master remains less than fastidious about the pungency of his wards; no matter. That will soon be rectified. For now, simply give me your hands, like so.” Chains firmly but gently guided Locke’s small hands until the boy’s palms rested over Chains’ blindfold. “Now … merely close your eyes and concentrate … concentrate. Let whatever virtuous thoughts you have within you bubble to the surface, let the warmth of your generous spirit flow forth from your innocent hands. Ah, yes, like that …”
    Locke was half-alarmed and half-amused, but the lines of Father Chains’ weathered face drew downward, and his mouth soon hung open in beatific anticipation.
    “Ahhhhhhh,” the priest whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “Yes, yes, you do have some talent … some power.… I can feel it.… It might almost be … a miracle !”
    At that, Chains jerked his head back, and Locke jumped in the oppositedirection. His chains clanking, the priest lifted manacled hands to his blindfold and yanked it off with a flourish. Locke recoiled, unsure of what eyeless sockets might look like, but the priest’s eyes were quite normal. In fact, Chains squinted in pain and rubbed them several times, wincing at the glare of the alchemical globe.
    “Ahhhh-ha-ha-ha!” he cried, finally holding out his hands toward Locke. “I’m healed! I can see! once! more! ”
    Locke stared, gaping like a slackwit for the second time that night, unsure of what to say. Behind him, the two hooded boys started to giggle, and Locke’s eyebrows bent inward in suspicion.
    “You’re not … really blind ,” he said.
    “And you’re clearly not stupid!” Chains cried, leaping up with a glee that brought wet-sounding pops from his kneecaps. He waved his manacled hands like a bird trying to take flight. “Calo! Galdo! Get these damn things off my wrists so we can count our daily blessings.”
    The two hooded boys hurried over and did something to the manacles that Locke couldn’t quite follow; they slid open and fell to the floor with a