Free The Left Hand Of God by Paul Hoffman

third trip through the Sanctuary at night, in a few hours Cale had seen only one Redeemer in the distance.
    A strange exhilaration spread through Cale. The people he hated and who seemed so invulnerable and powerful were not. He had outwitted Bosco, killed the Lord of Discipline, and now he was moving easily about the Sanctuary. A warning sounded deep in his heart not to become cocky—”Be watchful, or else you’ll swing for this.”
    Still, however much he thought about it, however much it smacked of recklessness, it made sense to return to the Lord of Discipline’s rooms. He had taken a few things before he’d left with the girl, but if the four of them were to have any chance outside, they would need . . . In fact he didn’t know what they would need, but there was a chance to find many things to help in the dead man’s rooms, and it would be foolish not to take the chance. Given luck, there would be another four hours before the dead Redeemer was found.
    Ten minutes later he was standing over Picarbo’s dead body again. He paused for a moment and then began to search. It was an odd experience because there was so much. Acolytes were not permitted to own anything. Even Redeemers were supposed to own only seven things, though why not eight or six nobody knew. Picarbo’s rooms were filled with stuff. Cale did not know what many of the things were, and he would have liked to spend time just rolling them over in his hands and speculating about their purpose—how peculiar and pleasant to the touch a shaving brush made of badger hair, and how wonderful the smell and slippery feel of a bar of soap. But death soon damped down his curiosity, and he began to pick and choose what would go into the rucksack he had found: knives, a telescope—a fabulous thing he had seen being used by Bosco from the battlements—a sharpening tool for Picarbo’s medical instruments, a linen bag, some herbs he had seen used for the treatment of wounds, fine-bore needles, thread, a ball of string. He searched the cupboards, but most of them contained tray upon tray of preserved specimens of bits of women’s bodies. Cale did not, of course, recognize most of them. Not that he felt any need to justify killing Picarbo, a man he’d seen beat many children in formal punishments and even kill one. But the carefully dried body parts made him feel both disgust as well as dread.
    Then he tried one of the doors leading off the room, avoiding looking as he did so at the poor creature on the dissection table.
    He opened it, and at once a strong smell of stale priest afflicted his nostrils. He had noticed before whenever he was in the midst of more than two Redeemers in a confined space that they smelled odd. But this room seemed to be stained in its very walls with the odor—something rotten, as if everything inside them, the very living spirit, was in the process of becoming rank. On his way out, Cale did not want to look at the body of the girl, but something drew him toward it. He looked only for a moment at the careful and meticulous mutilation of the beautiful young woman. He felt an unaccustomed surge of pity that something so soft and delicate should be laid to waste in such a way. Then his eye caught the small, hard object in the metal dish that the Lord of Discipline had removed from the girl’s stomach just before Cale left the first time. It was not bone or anything that looked very gruesome—it was the shape and texture of a small pebble washed smooth by long exposure to a fast-flowing stream. It was milkily transparent, and a golden brown color. Wary, Cale touched it with his forefinger. Then he picked it up and looked at it. Then he sniffed. The smell almost overpowered him, as if every cell in his brain was taken over by its strange but wonderful perfume. He stood for a moment, dazed and ready to faint. But he had to move on. He took a deep breath and continued searching, taking a few more things he thought could be useful and a few