The teaching and the revelations of the strange goddess in the vault had shaken his beliefs and assumptions to the core. It was as if time itself had been stood on its head. Emerging from the Sistine Chapel, where he had left the evil Pope, Alexander VI apparently dying, he squinted again in the harsh sunlight. His fellow Assassins were gathered around, their faces grave and set with a grim determination.

The thought pursued him still: should he have killed Rodrigo - made sure of him? He had elected not to - and the man had seemed bent on taking his own life, having failed in his final goal.

But that clear voice still rang in Ezio’s mind.

And there was more: a baffling force seemed to be drawing him back to the chapel - he sensed that there was something left undone.

Not Rodrigo. Not just Rodrigo. Though he would finish him now. Something else.

‘What is it?’ Mario asked.

‘I must return,‘ Ezio said, realizing afresh, and with a lurching stomach, that the game wasn’t over and that the Apple should not yet pass from his hands. As the thought struck him, so he was seized by an overwhelming sense of urgency. Tearing himself free of his uncle’s sheltering arms, he hurried back into the gloom. Mario, bidding the others to stay where they were and keep watch, followed.

Ezio quickly reached the place where he’d left the dying Rodrigo Borgia - but the man wasn’t there! A richly decorated papal damask cope lay in a heap on the floor, flecked with gore, but its owner was gone. Once again the hand, clad in an icy steel gauntlet, closed over Ezio’s heart and seemed to crush it.

The hidden door to the vault was, to all intents and purposes, closed and almost invisible, but as Ezio approached the point where he remembered it had been, it swung open gently at his touch. He turned to his uncle and was surprised to see fear on Mario’s face.

‘What’s in there?’ said the older man, fighting to keep his voice steady.