Page 105 (2/2)

“Thanks for the warning”

Sa up

Reinative”

“I have my moments”

CHAPTER 44

Armed with the next lines of the riddle and Yvette’s broadband Internet connection, Sam and Remi locked theracious host, ordered Langdon to supply thees, pens and paper, a second laptop, dry-erase markers, and a four-by-six-foot dry-erase board On this they wrote the riddle in huge block letters:

Anguished House Fellows in amber trapped;

Tassilo and Pepere Gibbous Baia keep safe the place of Hajj;

The Genius of Ionia, his stride a battle of rivals;

A trio of Quoins, their fourth lost, shall point the way to Frigisinga

They began by co a list of synonys They counted sixteen: “anguished,” “House,” “Fellows,” “trapped,” “Gibbous,” “keep,” “safe,” “place,” “Hajj,” “Genius,” “stride,” “battle,” “rivals,” “trio,” “point,” “way”

Froenerated a list of dozens of words Those they wrote on the board’s opposite side in a spiderweb-like chart, branch leading to thread leading to question marks

Next they turned their attention to words they felt had clear links to history—“amber,” “Tassilo,” “Baia,” “Hajj,” “Genius,” “Ionia,” “Quoins”—which they also placed on the board, in their own separate coluan scouring the Internet for historical references, which they plugged into briefs of each word

Five of the words—“amber,” “Tassilo,” “Baia,” “Hajj,” “Ionia”—had links to well-known places, peoples, or things Aiven nas; Hajj was the nae to the holy site of Mecca; Baia, which meant “mine,” was the name of a commune in Romania on the Moldova River; and Ionia was a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea

Unfortunately, like their list of synonyms, each of these historical referen