Angels & Demons полностью

Somewhere beneath Rome the dark figure prowled down a stone ramp into the underground tunnel. The ancient passageway was lit only by torches, making the air hot and thick. Up ahead the frightened voices of grown men called out in vain, echoing in the cramped spaces.

As he rounded the corner he saw them, exactly as he had left them—four old men, terrified, sealed behind rusted iron bars in a stone cubicle.

"Qui êtes-vous?" one of the men demanded in French. "What do you want with us?"

"Hilfe!" another said in German. "Let us go!"

"Are you aware who we are?" one asked in English, his accent Spanish.

"Silence," the raspy voice commanded. There was a finality about the word.

The fourth prisoner, an Italian, quiet and thoughtful, looked into the inky void of his captor’s eyes and swore he saw hell itself. God help us, he thought.

The killer checked his watch and then returned his gaze to the prisoners. "Now then," he said. "Who will be first?"

Inside Archive Vault 10 Robert Langdon recited Italian numbers as he scanned the calligraphy before him. Mille… centi… uno, duo, tre… cincuanta. I need a numerical reference! Anything, damnit!

When he reached the end of his current folio, he lifted the spatula to flip the page. As he aligned the blade with the next page, he fumbled, having difficulty holding the tool steady. Minutes later, he looked down and realized he had abandoned his spatula and was turning pages by hand. Oops, he thought, feeling vaguely criminal. The lack of oxygen was affecting his inhibitions. Looks like I’ll burn in archivist’s hell.

"About damn time," Vittoria choked when she saw Langdon turning pages by hand. She dropped her spatula and followed suit.

"Any luck?"

Vittoria shook her head. "Nothing that looks purely mathematical. I’m skimming… but none of this reads like a clue."

Langdon continued translating his folios with increasing difficulty. His Italian skills were rocky at best, and the tiny penmanship and archaic language was making it slow going. Vittoria reached the end of her stack before Langdon and looked disheartened as she flipped the pages back over. She hunkered down for another more intense inspection.

When Langdon finished his final page, he cursed under his breath and looked over at Vittoria. She was scowling, squinting at something on one of her folios. "What is it?" he asked.

Vittoria did not look up. "Did you have any footnotes on your pages?"

"Not that I noticed. Why?"

"This page has a footnote. It’s obscured in a crease."

Langdon tried to see what she was looking at, but all he could make out was the page number in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet. Folio 5. It took a moment for the coincidence to register, and even when it did the connection seemed vague. Folio Five. Five, Pythagoras, pentagrams, Illuminati. Langdon wondered if the Illuminati would have chosen page five on which to hide their clue. Through the reddish fog surrounding them, Langdon sensed a tiny ray of hope. "Is the footnote mathematical?"

Vittoria shook her head. "Text. One line. Very small printing. Almost illegible."

His hopes faded. "It’s supposed to be math. Lingua pura."

"Yeah, I know." She hesitated. "I think you’ll want to hear this, though." Langdon sensed excitement in her voice.

"Go ahead."

Squinting at the folio, Vittoria read the line. "The path of light is laid, the sacred test."

The words were nothing like what Langdon had imagined. "I’m sorry?"

Vittoria repeated the line. "The path of light is laid, the sacred test."

"Path of light?" Langdon felt his posture straightening.

"That’s what it says. Path of light."

As the words sank in, Langdon felt his delirium pierced by an instant of clarity. The path of light is laid, the sacred test. He had no idea how it helped them, but the line was as direct a reference to the Path of Illumination as he could imagine. Path of light. Sacred test. His head felt like an engine revving on bad fuel. "Are you sure of the translation?"

Vittoria hesitated. "Actually…" She glanced over at him with a strange look. "It’s not technically a translation. The line is written in English."

For an instant, Langdon thought the acoustics in the chamber had affected his hearing. "English?"

Vittoria pushed the document over to him, and Langdon read the minuscule printing at the bottom of the page. "The path of light is laid, the sacred test. English? What is English doing in an Italian book?"

Vittoria shrugged. She too was looking tipsy. "Maybe English is what they meant by the lingua pura? It’s considered the international language of science. It’s all we speak at CERN."