Chapter 68 Chapter 67

He walked slowly down. Langdon descended the creaking ladder step by step...in and out of the Ziggy Chapel.Into the devil's lair, he thought.With his front facing the side wall and his back facing the cave, he thought about how many dark and small spaces he would encounter in a day.There was a groan with every step on the ladder, and the pungent stench of rotting corpses and the dark damp inside the cave was almost suffocating.Langdon wondered where the hell Olivetti was. He could still see Victoria above, sticking her torch into the cave to show Langdon the way.As Langdon slowly descended into the darkness.The light blue light above became weaker and weaker, and only the stench became stronger and stronger.

There was a problem getting down to the twelfth step.Langdon's foot touched a rotten slippery spot that shook.He lunged forward, grabbing the ladder with his forearm to keep from falling straight to the bottom of the cave.Cursing under his breath the throbbing wound on his arm, he leaned back on the ladder and slowly descended again. Three more steps down, he nearly fell again, not this time from the ladder, but from an unexpected startle.As he descended, he passed a hole in the wall in front of him, and suddenly found himself facing a pile of skulls.He held his breath and looked around, and found that the walls of this floor were covered with holes like bookshelves—burial caves full of skeletons.In the phosphorescent light of will-o'-the-wisps, the burial cave was an eerie mass of empty dens, and rotting bones gleamed around him.

Skeletons in firelight.He realized that he had experienced a night similar to this last month, and a distorted grimace appeared on his face.A night of skeletons and flames.Charity Candlelight Dinner at the Museum of Archeology in New York - A brontosaurus skeleton is reflected in a flaming salmon.He was at the dinner at the invitation of Rebecca Strauss, a former fashion model and now Time magazine's art critic.She was wearing a black velvet dress, smoking a cigarette, and her high breasts were sticking out.She had called him twice since then, and Langdon hadn't returned her calls.Ungentlemanly enough, he scolded, wondering how long Rebecca could last in such a fetid ditch.

When his feet finally touched the wet soil at the bottom, he let out a sigh of relief.The ground is a bit wet.He figured out that the surrounding hole walls were not coming towards him, and turned to look at the basement.The cellar was circular, about twenty feet in diameter.He covered his nose with his sleeve again and turned his gaze to the body.In the darkness, the appearance of that person was indistinct.A white, fleshy silhouette faces the other way.not moving at all.Dead silence. Langdon tried to make sense of what he was seeing as he made his way down the dimly lit basement. The man's back was turned to Langdon, so his face could not be seen, but he did appear to be standing.

"Hello?" Langdon said, covering his nose with his sleeve.Nothing happened.As he got closer, he realized that the man was short.too short... "What's the matter?" Victoria shouted from above, shaking the light. Langdon didn't answer.He was so close now that he could see it all.He understood, disgusted, trembling.The cave seems to be shrinking.Emerging like a devil from the mud was an old man...or at least half of it.He stood upright, buried in the earth from the waist down, and was naked.His hands are tied behind his back with a cardinal's sash.He held on weakly, his spine arched like some kind of ugly punching bag.He tilted his head back and looked at the sky, as if he was asking God for help.

"Is he dead?" Victoria called. Langdon moved toward the body.I hope so, for his own good.When he was only a few steps away, he looked down at the upturned eyes.The eyes were bulging outward, iron blue and bloodshot. Langdon leaned over to see if he was still breathing, but pulled back immediately. "My God!" "What's wrong!" Langdon almost gagged. "He's dead, I just saw how he died." The situation was horrible.The man's mouth had been pried open and filled with dirt. "Someone stuffed his throat, a handful of mud, and he was suffocated."

"Mud?" said Victoria. "You mean...dirt?" It dawned on Langdon.earth.He almost forgot.Those printed characters: earth, air, fire, water. The killer threatens to brand each victim with an ancient scientific element.The first element is earth.You step from Sandy's mound.Dizzy by the stench, Langdon circled around to the front of the corpse.As always, as a semiotician, he was pondering over and over again the artistic problem of mysterious symmetrical characters.earth?How did you behave?However, after a while it appeared before his eyes.The legend of the Illuminati from hundreds of years ago lingered in his mind.The mark on the cardinal's chest was charred and oozing.The flesh on his body was roasted and turned black.pure language...

Langdon stared at the brand, feeling dizzy. "Dirt," he whispered, tilting his head and looking at the mark upside down, "it's still dirt." Then, in a moment of horror, he realized: there were three more.