of repulsion, he understood. The chamber seemed to contract around him. Emerging like a demon from the earthen floor was an old man... or at least half of him. He was buried up to his waist in the earth. Standing upright with half of him below ground. Stripped naked. His hands tied behind his back with a red cardinal's sash. He was propped limply upward, spine arched backward like some sort of hideous punching bag. The man's head lay backward, eyes toward the heavens as if pleading for help from God himself.
"Is he dead?" Vittoria called.
Langdon moved toward the body. I hope so, for his sake. As he drew to within a few feet, he looked down at the upturned eyes. They bulged outward, blue and bloodshot. Langdon leaned down to listen for breath but immediately recoiled. "For Christ's sake!"
"What!"
Langdon almost gagged. "He's dead all right. I just saw the cause of death." The sight was gruesome. The man's mouth had been jammed open and packed solid with dirt. "Somebody stuffed a fistful of dirt down his throat. He suffocated."
"Dirt?" Vittoria said. "As in... earth?"
Langdon did a double take. Earth. He had almost forgotten. The brands. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The killer had threatened to brand each victim with one of the ancient elements of science. The first element was Earth. From Santi's earthly tomb. Dizzy from the fumes, Langdon circled to the front of the body. As he did, the symbologist within him loudly reasserted the artistic challenge of creating the mythical ambigram. Earth? How? And yet, an instant later, it was before him. Centuries of Illuminati legend whirled in his mind. The marking on the cardinal's chest was charred and oozing. The flesh was seared black. La lingua pura...
Langdon stared at the brand as the room began to spin.
Angels & Demons
"Earth," he whispered, tilting his head to see the symbol upside down. "Earth."
Then, in a wave of horror, he had one final cognition. There are three more.
68
Despite the soft glow of candlelight in the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal Mortati was on edge. Conclave had officially begun. And it had begun in a most inauspicious fashion.
Half an hour ago, at the appointed hour, Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca had entered the chapel. He walked to the front altar and gave opening prayer. Then, he unfolded his hands and spoke to them in a tone as direct as anything Mortati had ever heard from the altar of the Sistine.
"You are well aware," the camerlegno said, "that our four preferiti are not present in conclave at this moment. I ask, in the name of his late Holiness, that you proceed as you must... with faith and purpose. May you have only God before your eyes." Then he turned to go.
"But," one cardinal blurted out, "where are they?"
The camerlegno paused. "That I cannot honestly say."
"When will they return?"
"That I cannot honestly say."
"Are they okay?"
"That I cannot honestly say."
"Will they return?"
There was a long pause.
"Have faith," the camerlegno said. Then he walked out of the room.
The doors to the Sistine Chapel had been sealed, as was the custom, with two heavy chains on the outside. Four Swiss Guards stood watch in the hallway beyond. Mortati knew the only way the doors could be opened now, prior to electing a Pope, was if someone inside fell deathly ill, or if the preferiti arrived. Mortati prayed it would be the latter, although from the knot in his stomach he was not so sure.
Proceed as we must, Mortati decided, taking his lead from the resolve in the camerlegno's voice. So he had called for a vote. What else could he do?
It had taken thirty minutes to complete the preparatory rituals leading up to this first vote. Mortati had waited patiently at the main altar as each cardinal, in order of seniority, had approached and performed the specific balloting procedure.
Now, at last, the final cardinal had arrived at the altar and was kneeling before him.
"I call as my witness," the cardinal declared, exactly as those before him, "Christ the Lord, who will be my judge that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected."
The cardinal stood up. He held his ballot high over his head for everyone to see. Then he lowered the ballot to the altar, where a plate sat atop a large chalice. He placed the ballot on the plate. Next he picked up the plate and used it to drop the ballot into the chalice. Use of the plate was