Inferno: (Robert Langdon Book 4)

on water, there are probably endless possibilities.”
    “What if the lagoon is indoors?” Sienna asked suddenly, eyeing them both. “The poem refers to ‘the darkness’ of ‘the sunken palace.’ You mentioned earlier that the Doge’s Palace is connected to the basilica, right? That means those structures have a lot of what the poem mentions—a mouseion of holy wisdom, a palace, relevance to doges—and it’s all located right there on Venice’s main lagoon, at sea level.”
    Langdon considered this. “You think the poem’s ‘sunken palace’ is the Doge’s Palace?”
    “Why not? The poem tells us first to kneel at St. Mark’s Basilica, then to follow the sounds of trickling water. Maybe the sounds of water lead next door to the Doge’s Palace. It could have a submerged foundation or something.”
    Langdon had visited the Doge’s Palace many times and knew that it was absolutely massive. A sprawling complex of buildings, the palace housed a grand-scale museum, a veritable labyrinth of institutional chambers, apartments, and courtyards, and a prison network so vast that it was housed in multiple buildings.
    “You may be right,” Langdon said, “but a blind search of that palace would take days. I suggest we do exactly as the poem tells us. First, we go to St. Mark’s Basilica and find the tomb or statue of this treacherous doge, and then we kneel down.”
    “And then?” Sienna asked.
    “And then,” Langdon said with a sigh, “we pray like hell that we hear trickling water … and it leads us somewhere.”
    In the silence that followed, Langdon pictured the anxious face of Elizabeth Sinskey as he had seen it in his hallucinations, calling to him across the water. Time is short. Seek and find! He wondered where Sinskey was now … and if she was all right. The soldiers in black had no doubt realized by now that Langdon and Sienna had escaped. How long until they come after us?
    As Langdon returned his eyes to the poem, he fought off a wave of exhaustion. He eyed the final line of verse, and another thought occurred to him. He wondered if it was even worth mentioning. The lagoon that reflects no stars. It was probably irrelevant to their search, but he decided to share it nonetheless. “There’s another point I should mention.”
    Sienna glanced up from the cell phone.
    “The three sections of Dante’s Divine Comedy ,” Langdon said. “ Inferno , Purgatorio , and Paradiso . They all end with the exact same word.”
    Sienna looked surprised.
    “What word is that?” Ferris asked.
    Langdon pointed to the bottom of the text he had transcribed. “The same word that ends this poem—‘stars.’ ” He picked up Dante’s death mask and pointed to the very center of the spiral text.
    The lagoon that reflects no stars.
    “What’s more,” Langdon continued, “in the finale of the Inferno , we find Dante listening to the sound of trickling water inside a chasm and following it through an opening … which leads him out of hell.”
    Ferris blanched slightly. “Jesus.”
    Just then, a deafening rush of air filled the cabin as the Frecciargento plunged into a mountain tunnel.
    In the darkness, Langdon closed his eyes and tried to allow his mind to relax. Zobrist may have been a lunatic , he thought, but he certainly had a sophisticated grasp of Dante.

CHAPTER 64
    LAURENCE KNOWLTON FELT a wave of relief wash over him.
    The provost changed his mind about watching Zobrist’s video.
    Knowlton practically dove for the crimson memory stick and inserted it into his computer so he could share it with his boss. The weight of Zobrist’s bizarre nine-minute message had been haunting the facilitator, and he was eager to have another set of eyes watch it.
    This will no longer be on me.
    Knowlton held his breath as he began the playback.
    The screen darkened, and the sounds of gently lapping water filled the cubicle. The camera moved through the reddish haze of the underground cavern, and although the provost showed no visible reaction, Knowlton sensed that the man was as alarmed as he was bewildered.
    The camera paused its forward motion and tipped downward at the surface of the lagoon, where it plunged beneath the water, diving several feet to reveal the polished titanium plaque bolted to the floor.
    IN THIS PLACE, ON THIS DATE,
THE WORLD WAS CHANGED FOREVER.
    The provost flinched ever so slightly. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, eyeing the date. “And do we know where ‘this place’ might