Langdon was impressed. Teabing had just finished writing out the entire twenty-two-letter Hebrewalphabet—alef-beit—from memory. Granted, he'd used Roman equivalents rather than Hebrewcharacters, but even so, he was now reading through them with flawless pronunciation.
A B G D H V Z Ch T Y K L M N S O P Tz Q R Sh Th"Alef, Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yud, Kaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech, Ayin,Pei, Tzadik, Kuf, Reish, Shin, and Tav." Teabing dramatically mopped his brow and plowed on. "Informal Hebrew spelling, the vowel sounds are not written. Therefore, when we write the wordBaphomet using the Hebrew alphabet, it will lose its three vowels in translation, leaving us—""Five letters," Sophie blurted.
Teabing nodded and began writing again. "Okay, here is the proper spelling of Baphomet inHebrew letters. I'll sketch in the missing vowels for clarity's sake.
B a P V o M e Th"Remember, of course," he added, "that Hebrew is normally written in the opposite direction, butwe can just as easily use Atbash this way. Next, all we have to do is create our substitution schemeby rewriting the entire alphabet in reverse order opposite the original alphabet.""There's an easier way," Sophie said, taking the pen from Teabing. "It works for all reflectionalsubstitution ciphers, including the Atbash. A little trick I learned at the Royal Holloway." Sophiewrote the first half of the alphabet from left to right, and then, beneath it, wrote the second half,right to left. "Cryptanalysts call it the fold-over. Half as complicated. Twice as clean."ABGDHVZChTYKThShRQTzPOSNMLTeabing eyed her handiwork and chuckled. "Right you are. Glad to see those boys at the Hollowayare doing their job."Looking at Sophie's substitution matrix, Langdon felt a rising thrill that he imagined must haverivaled the thrill felt by early scholars when they first used the Atbash Cipher to decrypt the nowfamous Mystery of Sheshach. For years, religious scholars had been baffled by biblical referencesto a city called Sheshach. The city did not appear on any map nor in any other documents, and yetit was mentioned repeatedly in the Book of Jeremiah—the king of Sheshach, the city of Sheshach,the people of Sheshach. Finally, a scholar applied the Atbash Cipher to the word, and his resultswere mind-numbing. The cipher revealed that Sheshach was in fact a code word for another verywell-known city. The decryption process was simple.
Sheshach, in Hebrew, was spelled: Sh-Sh-K.
Sh-Sh-K, when placed in the substitution matrix, became B-B-L.
B-B-L, in Hebrew, spelled Babel.
The mysterious city of Sheshach was revealed as the city of Babel, and a frenzy of biblicalexamination ensued. Within weeks, several more Atbash code words were uncovered in the OldTestament, unveiling myriad hidden meanings that scholars had no idea were there.
We're getting close," Langdon whispered, unable to control his excitement.
Inches, Robert," Teabing said. He glanced over at Sophie and smiled. "You ready?"She nodded.
Okay, Baphomet in Hebrew without the vowels reads: B-P-V-M-Th. Now we simply apply yourAtbash substitution matrix to translate the letters into our five-letter password."Langdon's heart pounded. B-P-V-M-Th. The sun was pouring through the windows now. He lookedat Sophie's substitution matrix and slowly began to make the conversion. B is Sh... P is V...
Teabing was grinning like a schoolboy at Christmas. "And the Atbash Cipher reveals..." Hestopped short. "Good God!" His face went white.
Langdon's head snapped up.
What's wrong?" Sophie demanded.
You won't believe this." Teabing glanced at Sophie. "Especially you.""What do you mean?" she said.
This is... ingenious," he whispered. "Utterly ingenious!" Teabing wrote again on the paper.
Drumroll, please. Here is your password." He showed them what he had written.
Sh-V-P-Y-ASophie scowled. "What is it?"Langdon didn't recognize it either.
Teabing's voice seemed to tremble with awe. "This, my friend, is actually an ancient word ofwisdom."Langdon read the letters again. An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll. An instant later he gotit. He had newer seen this coming. "An ancient word of wisdom!"Teabing was laughing. "Quite literally!"Sophie looked at the word and then at the dial. Immediately she realized Langdon and Teabing hadfailed to see a serious glitch. "Hold on! This can't be the password," she argued. "The cryptexdoesn't have an Sh on the dial. It uses a traditional Roman alphabet.""Read the word," Langdon urged. "Keep in mind two things. In Hebrew, the symbol for the soundSh can also be pronounced as S, depending on the accent. Just as the letter P can be pronounced F."SVFYA? she thought, puzzled.
Genius!" Teabing added. "The letter Vav is often a placeholder for the vowel sound O!"Sophie again looked at the letters, attempting to sound them out.
S...o...f...y...a."She heard the sound of her voice, and could not believe what she had just said. "Sophia? Thisspells Sophia?"Langdon was nodding enthusiastically. "Yes! Sophia literally means wisdom in Greek. The root ofyour name, Sophie, is literally a 'word of wisdom.' "Sophie suddenly missed her grandfather immensely. He encrypted the Priory keystone with myname. A knot caught in her throat. It all seemed so perfect. But as she turned her gaze to the fivelettered dials on the cryptex, she realized a problem still existed. "But wait... the word Sophia hassix letters."Teabing's smile never faded. "Look at the poem again. Your grandfather wrote, 'An ancient wordof wisdom.' ""Yes?"Teabing winked. "In ancient Greek, wisdom is spelled S-O-F-I-A.
BaPVoMeTh
Sh-Sh-K.
B-B-L
Sheshach
Sh-V-P-Y-A.
Sh.
S-o-f-y-a.
Sophia
S-O-F-I-A.
