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lost treasures.”

Langdon felt dizzy. As much as he wanted to believe his dear friend, he could not. “Is it much farther?” His

velvet hoodwink was drenched in sweat.

“No. Only a few more steps, actually. Through one last door. I’ll open it now.”

Solomon let go of him for a moment, and as he did so, Langdon swayed, feeling light-headed. Unsteady, he

reached out for stability, and Peter was quickly back at his side. The sound of a heavy automatic door

rumbled in front of them. Peter took Langdon’s arm and they moved forward again.

“This way.”

They inched across another threshold, and the door slid closed behind them.

Silence. Cold.

Langdon immediately sensed that this place, whatever it was, had nothing to do with the world on the other

side of the security doors. The air was dank and chilly, like a tomb. The acoustics felt dull and cramped. He

felt an irrational bout of claustrophobia settling in.

“A few more steps.” Solomon guided him blindly around a corner and positioned him precisely. Finally, he

said, “Take off your blindfold.”

Langdon seized the velvet hoodwink and tore it from his face. He looked all around to find out where he was,

but he was still blind. He rubbed his eyes. Nothing. “Peter, it’s pitch-black!”

“Yes, I know. Reach in front of you. There’s a railing. Grasp it.”

Langdon groped in the darkness and found an iron railing.

“Now watch.” He could hear Peter fumbling with something, and suddenly a blazing flashlight beam pierced

the darkness. It was pointed at the floor, and before Langdon could take in his surroundings, Solomon

directed the flashlight out over the railing and pointed the beam straight down.

Langdon was suddenly staring into a bottomless shaft . . . an endless winding staircase that plunged deep into

the earth. My God! His knees nearly buckled, and he gripped the railing for support. The staircase was a

traditional square spiral, and he could see at least thirty landings descending into the earth before the

flashlight faded to nothing. I can’t even see the bottom!

“Peter . . .” he stammered. “What is this place!”

“I’ll take you to the bottom of the staircase in a moment, but before I do, you need to see something else.”

Too overwhelmed to protest, Langdon let Peter guide him away from the stairwell and across the strange

little chamber. Peter kept the flashlight trained on the worn stone floor beneath their feet, and Langdon could

get no real sense of the space around them . . . except that it was small.

A tiny stone chamber.

They arrived quickly at the room’s opposite wall, in which was embedded a rectangle of glass. Langdon

thought it might be a window into a room beyond, and yet from where he stood, he saw only darkness on the

other side.

“Go ahead,” Peter said. “Have a look.”

“What’s in there?” Langdon flashed for an instant on the Chamber of Reflection beneath the Capitol

Building, and how he had believed, for a moment, that it might contain a portal to some giant underground

cavern.

“Just look, Robert.” Solomon inched him forward. “And brace yourself, because the sight will shock you.”

Having no idea what to expect, Langdon moved toward the glass. As he neared the portal, Peter turned out

the flashlight, plunging the tiny chamber into total darkness.

As his eyes adjusted, Langdon groped in front of him, his hands finding the wall, finding the glass, his face

moving closer to the transparent portal.

Still only darkness beyond.

He leaned closer . . . pressing his face to the glass.

Then he saw it.

The wave of shock and disorientation that tore through Langdon’s body reached down inside and spun his

internal compass upside down. He nearly fell backward as his mind strained to accept the utterly

unanticipated sight that was before him. In his wildest dreams, Robert Langdon would never have guessed

what lay on the other side of this glass.

The vision was a glorious sight.

There in the darkness, a brilliant white light shone like a gleaming jewel.

Langdon now understood it all—the barricade on the access road . . . the guards at the main entrance . . . the

heavy metal door outside . . . the automatic doors that rumbled open and closed . . . the heaviness in his

stomach . . . the lightness in his head . . . and now this tiny stone chamber.

“Robert,” Peter whispered behind him, “sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light.”

Speechless, Langdon stared out through the window. His gaze traveled into the darkness of the night,

traversing more than a mile of empty space, dropping lower . . . lower . . . through the darkness . . . until it

came to rest atop the brilliantly illuminated, stark white dome of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Langdon had never seen the Capitol from this perspective—hovering 555 feet in the air atop America’s great

Egyptian obelisk. Tonight, for the first time in his life, he had ridden the elevator up to the tiny viewing

chamber . . . at the pinnacle of the Washington Monument.

CHAPTER 129

Robert Langdon stood mesmerized at the glass portal, absorbing the power of the landscape below him.

Having ascended unknowingly hundreds of feet into the air, he was now admiring one of the most

spectacular vistas he had ever seen.

The shining dome of the U.S. Capitol rose like a mountain at the east end of the National Mall. On either side

of the building, two parallel lines of light stretched toward him . . . the illuminated facades of the

Smithsonian museums . . . beacons of art, history, science, culture.

Langdon now realized to his astonishment that much of what Peter had declared to be true . . . was in fact

true. There is indeed a winding staircase . . . descending hundreds of feet beneath a massive stone. The huge

capstone of this obelisk sat directly over his head, and Langdon now recalled a forgotten bit of trivia that

seemed to have eerie relevance: the capstone of the Washington Monument weighed precisely thirty-three

hundred pounds.

Again, the number 33.

More startling, however, was the knowledge that this capstone’s ultimate peak, the zenith of this obelisk, was

crowned by a tiny, polished tip of aluminum—a metal as precious as gold in its day. The shining apex of the

Washington Monument was only about a foot tall, the same size as the Masonic Pyramid. Incredibly, this

small metal pyramid bore a famous engraving—Laus Deo— and Langdon suddenly understood. This is the

true message of the base of the stone pyramid.

The seven symbols are a transliteration!

The simplest of ciphers.

The symbols are letters.

The stonemason’s square—L

The element gold—AU

The Greek Sigma—S

The Greek Delta—D

Alchemical mercury—E

The Ouroboros—O

“Laus Deo,” Langdon whispered. The well-known Latin phrase—meaning “praise God”—was inscribed on

the tip of the Washington Monument in script letters only one inch tall. On full display . . . and yet invisible

to all.

Laus Deo.

“Praise God,” Peter said behind him, flipping on the soft lighting in the chamber. “The Masonic Pyramid’s

final code.”

Langdon turned. His friend was grinning broadly, and Langdon recalled that Peter had actually spoken the

words “praise God” earlier inside the Masonic library. And I still missed it.

Langdon felt a chill to realize how apt it was that the legendary Masonic Pyramid had guided him here . . . to

America’s great obelisk—the symbol of ancient mystical wisdom—rising toward the heavens at the heart of

a nation.

In a state of wonder, Langdon began moving counterclockwise around the perimeter of the tiny square room,

arriving now at another viewing window.

North.

Through this northward-facing window, Langdon gazed down at the familiar silhouette of the White House

directly in front of him. He raised his eyes to the horizon, where the straight line of Sixteenth Street ran due

north toward the House of the Temple.

I am due south of Heredom.

He continued around the perimeter to the next window. Looking west, Langdon’s eyes traced the long

rectangle of the reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial, its classical Greek architecture inspired by the

Parthenon in Athens, Temple to Athena—goddess of heroic undertakings.

Annuit coeptis, Langdon thought. God favors our undertaking.

Continuing to the final window, Langdon gazed southward across the dark waters of the Tidal Basin, where

the Jefferson Memorial shone brightly in the night. The gently sloping cupola, Langdon knew, was modeled

after the Pantheon, the original home to the great Roman gods of mythology.

Having looked in all four directions, Langdon now thought about the aerial photos he had seen of the

National Mall—her four arms outstretched from the Washington Monument toward the cardinal points of the

compass. I am standing at the crossroads of America.

Langdon continued back around to where Peter was standing. His mentor was beaming. “Well, Robert, this is

it. The Lost Word. This is where it’s buried. The Masonic Pyramid led us here.”

Langdon did a double take. He had all but forgotten about the Lost Word.

“Robert, I know of nobody more trustworthy than you. And after a night like tonight, I believe you deserve to

know what this is all about. As promised in legend, the Lost Word is indeed buried at the bottom of a

winding staircase.” He motioned to the mouth of the monument’s long stairwell.

Langdon had finally started to get his feet back under him, but now he was puzzled.

Peter quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object. “Do you remember this?”

Langdon took the cube-shaped box that Peter had entrusted to him long ago. “Yes . . . but I’m afraid I didn’t

do a very good job of protecting it.”

Solomon chuckled. “Perhaps the time had come for it to see the light of day.”

Langdon eyed the stone cube, wondering why Peter had just handed it to him.

“What does this look like to you?” Peter asked.

Langdon eyed the 1514 and recalled his first impression when Katherine had unwrapped the package.

“A cornerstone.”

“Exactly,” Peter replied. “Now, there are a few things you might not know about cornerstones. First, the

concept of laying a cornerstone comes from the Old Testament.”

Langdon nodded. “The Book of Psalms.”

“Correct. And a true cornerstone is always buried beneath the ground—symbolizing the building’s initial

step upward out of the earth toward the heavenly light.”

Langdon glanced out at the Capitol, recalling that its cornerstone was buried so deep in the foundation that,

to this day, excavations had been unable to find it.

“And finally,” Solomon said, “like the stone box in your hand, many cornerstones are little vaults . . . and

have hollow cavities so that they can hold buried treasures . . . talismans, if you will—symbols of hope for

the future of the building about to be erected.”

Langdon was well aware of this tradition, too. Even today, Masons laid cornerstones in which they sealed

meaningful objects—time capsules, photos, proclamations, even the ashes of important people.

“My purpose in telling you this,” Solomon said, glancing over at the stairwell, “should be clear.”

“You think the Lost Word is buried in the cornerstone of the Washington Monument?”

“I don’t think, Robert. I know. The Lost Word was buried in the cornerstone of this monument on July 4,

1848, in a full Masonic ritual.”

Langdon stared at him. “Our Masonic forefathers buried a word?!”

Peter nodded. “They did indeed. They understood the true power of what they were burying.”

All night, Langdon had been trying to wrap his mind around sprawling, ethereal concepts . . . the Ancient

Mysteries, the Lost Word, the Secrets of the Ages. He wanted something solid, and despite Peter’s claims

that the key to it all was buried in a cornerstone 555 feet beneath him, Langdon was having a hard time

accepting it. People study the mysteries for entire lifetimes and are still unable to access the power allegedly

hidden there. Langdon flashed on Dürer’s Melencolia I—the image of the dejected Adept, surrounded by the

tools of his failed efforts to unveil the mystical secrets of alchemy. If the secrets can actually be unlocked,

they will not be found in one place!

Any answer, Langdon had always believed, was spread across the world in thousands of volumes . . .

encoded into writings of Pythagoras, Hermes, Heraclitus, Paracelsus, and hundreds of others. The answer

was found in dusty, forgotten tomes on alchemy, mysticism, magic, and philosophy. The answer was hidden

in the ancient library of Alexandria, the clay tablets of Sumer, and the hieroglyphs of Egypt.

“Peter, I’m sorry,” Langdon said quietly, shaking his head. “To understand the Ancient Mysteries is a

lifelong process. I can’t imagine how the key could possibly rest within a single word.”

Peter placed a hand on Langdon’s shoulder. “Robert, the Lost Word is not a ‘word.’” He gave a sage smile.

“We only call it the ‘Word’ because that’s what the ancients called it . . . in the beginning.”

 CHAPTER 130

In the beginning was the Word.

Dean Galloway knelt at the Great Crossing of the National Cathedral and prayed for America. He prayed that

his beloved country would soon come to grasp the true power of the Word—the recorded collection of the

written wisdom of all the ancient masters—the spiritual truths taught by the great sages.

History had blessed mankind with the wisest of teachers, profoundly enlightened souls whose understanding

of the spiritual and mental mysteries exceeded all understanding. The precious words of these Adepts—

Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster, and countless others—had been transmitted through history in the

oldest and most precious of vessels.

Books.

Every culture on earth had its own sacred book—its own Word—each one different and yet each one the