William Goldman - THE PRINCESS BRIDE

Not Fezzik.
His first afternoon he gained a pound. (Since he weighed but fifteen and since his mother gave birth two weeks early, the doctors weren't unduly concerned. «it's because you came two weeks too soon,» they explained to fezzik's mother. «that explains it.» actually, of course, it didn't explain anything, but whenever doctors are confused about something, which is really more frequently than any of us would do well to think about, they always snatch at something in the vicinity of the case and add, «that explains it.» if fezzik's mother had come late, they would have said, «well, you came late, that explains it.» or «well, it was raining during delivery, this added weight is simply moisture, that explains it.»)
A healthy baby doubles his birth weight in about six months and triples it in a year. When Fezzik was a year old, he weighed eighty-five pounds. He wasn't fat, understand. He looked like a perfectly normal strong eighty-five-pound kid. Not all that normal, actually. He was pretty hairy for a one-year-old.
By the time he reached kindergarten, he was ready to shave. He was the size of a normal man by this time, and all the other children made his life miserable. At first, naturally, they were scared to death (even then, Fezzik looked fierce) but once they found out he was chicken, well, they weren't about to let an opportunity like that get away.
«Bully, bully,» they taunted Fezzik during morning yogurt break.
«I'm not,» Fezzik would say out loud. (To himself he would go «Woolly, woolly.» He would never dare to consider himself a poet, because he wasn't anything like that; he just loved rhymes. Anything you said out loud, he rhymed it inside. Sometimes the rhymes made sense, sometimes they didn't. Fezzik never cared much about sense; all that ever mattered was the sound.)
«Coward.»
Towered. «I'm not.»
«Then fight,» one of them would say, and would swing all he had and hit Fezzik in the stomach, confident that all Fezzik would do was go «oof and stand there, because he never hit back no matter what you did to him.
«Oof.»
Another swing. Another. A good stiff punch to the kidneys maybe. Maybe a kick in the knee. It would go on like that until Fezzik would burst into tears and run away.
One day at home, Fezzik's father called, «Come here.»
Fezzik, as always, obeyed.
«Dry your tears,» his mother said.
Two children had beaten him very badly just before. He did what he could to stop crying.
«Fezzik, this can't go on,» his mother said. «They must stop picking on you.»
Kicking on you. «I don't mind so much,» Fezzik said.
«Well you should mind,» his father said. He was a carpenter, with big hands. «Come on outside. I'm going to teach you how to fight.»
«Please, I don't want—«
«Obey your father.»
They trooped out to the back yard.
«Make a fist,» his father said.
Fezzik did his best.
His father looked at his mother, then at the heavens. «He can't even make a fist,» his father said.
«He's trying, he's only six; don't be so hard on him.»
Fezzik's father cared for his son greatly and he tried to keep his voice soft, so Fezzik wouldn't burst out crying. But it wasn't easy. «Honey,» Fezzik's father said, «look: when you make a fist, you don't put your thumb inside your fingers, you keep your thumb outside your fingers, because if you keep your thumb inside your fingers and you hit somebody, what will happen is you'll break your thumb, and that isn't good, because the whole object when you hit somebody is to hurt the other guy, not yourself.»
Blurt. «I don't want to hurt anybody, Daddy.»
«I don't want you to hurt anybody, Fezzik. But if you know how to take care of yourself, and they know you know, they won't bother you any more.»
Father. «I don't mind so much.»
«Well we do,» his mother said. «They shouldn't pick on you, Fezzik, just because you need a shave.»
«Back to the fist,» his father said. «Have we learned how?»
Fezzik made a fist again, this time with the thumb outside.
«He's a natural learner,» his mother said. She cared for him as greatly as his father did.
«Now hit me,» Fezzik's father said.
«No, I don't want to do that.»
«Hit your father, Fezzik.»
«Maybe he doesn't know how to hit,» Fezzik's father said.
«Maybe not.» Fezzik's mother shook her head sadly.
«Watch, honey,» Fezzik's father said. «See? Simple. You just make a fist like you already know and then pull back your arm a little and aim for where you want to land and let go.»
«Show your father what a natural learner you are,» Fezzik's mother said. «Make a punch. Hit him a good one.»
Fezzik made a punch toward his father's arm.
Fezzik's father stared at the heavens again in frustration.
«He came close to your arm,» Fezzik's mother said quickly, before her son's face could cloud. «That was very good for a start, Fezzik; tell him what a good start he made,» she said to her husband.
«It was in the right general direction,» Fezzik's father managed. «If only I'd been standing one yard farther west, it would have been perfect.»
«I'm very tired,» Fezzik said. «When you learn so much so fast, you get so tired. I do anyway. Please may I be excused?»
«Not yet,» Fezzik's mother said.
«Honey, please hit me, really hit me, try. You're a smart boy; hit me a good one,» Fezzik's father begged.
«Tomorrow, Daddy; I promise.» Tears began to form.
«Crying's not going to work, Fezzik,» his father exploded. «It's not gonna work on me and it's not gonna work on your mother, you're gonna do what I say and what I say is you're gonna hit me and if it takes all night we're gonna stand right here and if it takes all week we're gonna stand right here and if it—«
S
P
L
A
T
!!!!
(This was before emergency wards, and that was too bad, at least for Fezzik's father, because there was no place to take him after Fezzik's punch landed, except to his own bed, where he remained with his eyes shut for a day and a half, except for when the milkman came to fix his broken jaw—this was not before doctors, but in Turkey they hadn't gotten around to claiming the bone business yet; milkmen still were in charge of bones, the logic being that since milk was so good for bones, who would know more about broken bones than a milkman?)
When Fezzik's father was able to open his eyes as much as he wanted, they had a family talk, the three of them.
«You're very strong, Fezzik,» his father said. (Actually, that is not strictly true. What his father meant was, «You're very strong, Fezzik.» What came out was more like this: «Zzz'zz zzzz zzzzzz, Zzzzzz.» Ever since the milkman had wired his jaws together, all he could manage was the letter z . But he had a very expressive face, and his wife understood him perfectly.)
«He says, 'You're very strong, Fezzik.'»
«I thought I was,» Fezzik answered. «Last year I hit a tree once when I was very mad. I knocked it down. It was a small tree, but still, I figured that had to mean something.»
«Z'z zzzzzz zz zzzzz z zzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzz.»
«He says he's giving up being a carpenter, Fezzik.»
«Oh, no,» Fezzik said. «You'll be all well soon, Daddy; the milkman practically promised me.»
«Z zzzz zz zzzz zz zzzzz z zzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzz.»
«He wants to give up being a carpenter, Fezzik.»
«But what will he do?»
Fezzik's mother answered this one herself; she and her husband had been up half the night agreeing on the decision. «He's going to be your manager, Fezzik. Fighting is the national sport of Turkey. We're all going to be rich and famous.»
«But Mommy, Daddy, I don't like fighting.»
Fezzik's father reached out and gently patted his son's knee. «Zz'z zzzzz zz zz zzzzzzzzz ,» he said.
«It's going to be wonderful ,» his mother translated.
Fezzik only burst into tears.
They had his first professional match in the village of Sandiki, on a steaming-hot Sunday. Fezzik's parents had a terrible time getting him into the ring. They were absolutely confident of victory, because they had worked very hard. They had taught Fezzik for three solid years before they mutually agreed that he was ready. Fezzik's father handled tactics and ring strategy, while his mother was more in charge of diet and training, and they had never been happier.
Fezzik had never been more miserable. He was scared and frightened and terrified, all rolled into one. no matter how they reassured him, he refused to enter the arena. because he knew something: even though outside he looked twenty, and his mustache was already coming along nicely, inside he was still this nine-year-old who liked rhyming things.
«No,» he said. «I won't, I won't, and you can't make me.»
«After all we've slaved for these three years,» his father said. (His jaw was almost as good as new now.)
«He'll hurt me!» Fezzik said.
«Life is pain,» his mother said. «Anybody that says different is selling something.»
«Please. I'm not ready. I forget the holds. I'm not graceful and I fall down a lot. It's true.»
It was. Their only real fear was, were they rushing him? «When the going gets tough, the tough get going,» Fezzik's mother said.
«Get going, Fezzik,» his father said.
Fezzik stood his ground.
«Listen, we're not going to threaten you,» Fezzik's parents said, more or less together. «We all care for each other too much to pull any of that stuff. If you don't want to fight, nobody's going to force you. We'll just leave you alone forever.» (Fezzik's picture of hell was being alone forever. He had told them that when he was five.)
They marched into the arena then to face the champion of Sandiki.
Who had been champion for eleven years, since he was twenty-four. He was very graceful and wide and stood six feet in height, only half a foot less than Fezzik.
Fezzik didn't stand a chance.
He was too clumsy; he kept falling down or getting his holds on backward so they weren't holds at all. The champion of Sandiki toyed with him. Fezzik kept getting thrown down or falling down or tumbling down or stumbling down. He always got up and tried again, but the champion of Sandiki was much too fast for him, and too clever, and much, much too experienced. The crowd laughed and ate baklava and enjoyed the whole spectacle.
Until Fezzik got his arms around the champion of Sandiki.
The crowd grew very quiet then.
Fezzik lifted him up.
No noise.
Fezzik squeezed.
And squeezed.
«That's enough now,» Fezzik's father said.
Fezzik laid the other man down. «Thank you,» he said. «You are a wonderful fighter and I was lucky.»
The ex-champion of Sandiki kind of grunted.
«Raise your hands, you're the winner,» his mother reminded.
Fezzik stood there in the middle of the ring with his hands raised.
«Booooo,» said the crowd.
«Animal.»
«Ape!»
«Go- rilla»
«BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!»
They did not linger long in Sandiki. As a matter of fact, it wasn't very safe from then on to linger long anywhere. They fought the champion of Ispir. «BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!» The champion of Simal. «BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!» They fought in Bolu. They fought in Zile.
«BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!»
«I don't care what anybody says,» Fezzik's mother told him one winter afternoon. «You're my son and you're wonderful.» It was gray and dark and they were hotfooting it out of Constantinople just as fast as they could because Fezzik had just demolished their champion before most of the crowd was even seated.
«I'm not wonderful,» Fezzik said. «They're right to insult me. I'm too big. Whenever I fight, it looks like I'm picking on somebody.»
«Maybe,» Fezzik's father began a little hesitantly; «maybe, Fezzik, if you'd just possibly kind of sort of lose a few fights, they might not yell at us so much.»
The wife whirled on the husband. «The boy is eleven and already you want him to throw fights?»
«Nothing like that, no, don't get all excited, but maybe if he'd even look like he was suffering a little, they'd let up on us.»
«I'm suffering,» Fezzik said. (He was, he was.)
«Let it show a little more.»
«I'll try, Daddy.»
«That's a good boy.»
«I can't help being strong; it's not my fault. I don't even exercise.»
«I think it's time to head for Greece,» Fezzik's father said then. «We've beaten everyone in Turkey who'll fight us and athletics began in Greece. No one appreciates talent like the Greeks.»
«I just hate it when they go 'BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!' « Fezzik said. (He did. Now his private picture of hell was being left alone with everybody going «BOOOOOOOOOOO» at him forever.)
«They'll love you in Greece,» Fezzik's mother said.
They fought in Greece.
«AARRRGGGGH!!!» (AARRRGGGGH!!! was Greek for BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!)
Bulgaria.
Yugoslavia.
Czechoslovakia. Romania.
«BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!»
They tried the Orient. The jujitsu champion of Korea. The karate champion of Siam. The kung fu champion of all India.
«SSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!» (See note on AARRRGGGGH!!!)
In Mongolia his parents died. «We've done everything we can for you, Fezzik, good luck,» they said, and they were gone. It was a terrible thing, a plague that swept everything before it. Fezzik would have died too, only naturally he never got sick. Alone, he continued on, across the Gobi Desert, hitching rides sometimes with passing caravans. And it was there that he learned how to make them stop BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!ing.
Fight groups.
It all began in a caravan on the Gobi when the caravan head said, «I'll bet my camel drivers can take you.» There were only three of them, so Fezzik said, «Fine,» he'd try, and he did, and he won, naturally.
And everybody seemed happy.
Fezzik was thrilled. He never fought just one person again if it was possible. For a while he traveled from place to place battling gangs for local charities, but his business head was never much and, besides, doing things alone was even less appealing to him now that he was into his late teens than it had been before.
He joined a traveling circus. All the other performers grumbled at him because, they said, he was eating more than his share of the food. so he stayed pretty much to himself except when it came to his work.
But then, one night, when Fezzik had just turned twenty, he got the shock of his life: the BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!ing was back again. He could not believe it. He had just squeezed half a dozen men into submission, cracked the heads of half a dozen more. What did they want from him ?
The truth was simply this: he had gotten too strong. He would never measure himself, but everybody whispered he must be over seven feet tall, and he would never step on a scale, but people claimed he weighed four hundred. And not only that, he was quick now. All the years of experience had made him almost inhuman. He knew all the tricks, could counter all the holds.
«Animal.»
«Ape!»
«Go- rilla! »
«BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!»
That night, alone in his tent, Fezzik wept. He was a freak. (Speak—he still loved rhymes.) A two-eyed Cyclops. (Eye drops —like the tears that were dropping now, dropping from his half-closed eyes.) By the next morning, he had gotten control of himself: at least he still had his circus friends around him.
That week the circus fired him. The crowds were BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!ing them now too, and the fat lady threatened to walk out and the midgets were fuming and that was it for Fezzik.
This was in the middle of Greenland, and, as everybody knows, Greenland then as now was the loneliest place on the Earth. In Greenland, there is one person for every twenty square miles of real estate. Probably the circus was pretty stupid taking a booking there, but that wasn't the point.
The point was that Fezzik was alone.
In the loneliest place in the world.
Just sitting there on a rock watching the circus pull away.
He was still sitting there the next day when Vizzini the Sicilian found him. Vizzini flattered him, promised to keep the BOOOOOOOOOOOS away. Vizzini needed Fezzik. But not half as much as Fezzik needed Vizzini. As long as Vizzini was around, you couldn't be alone. Whatever Vizzini said, Fezzik did. And if that meant crushing the head of the man in black . . .
So be it.

But not by ambush. Not the coward's way. Nothing unsportsmanlike. His parents had always taught him to go by the rules. Fezzik stood in shadow, the great rock tight in his great hand. He could hear the footsteps of the man in black coming nearer. Nearer.
Fezzik leaped from hiding and threw the rock with incredible power and perfect accuracy. It smashed into a boulder a foot away from the face of the man in black. «I did that on purpose,» Fezzik said then, picking up another rock, holding it ready. «I didn't have to miss.»
«I believe you,» the man in black said.
They stood facing each other on the narrow mountain path.
«Now what happens?» asked the man in black.
«We face each other as God intended,» Fezzik said. «No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.»
«You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?»
«If you'd rather, I can kill you now,» Fezzik said gently, and he raised the rock to throw. «I'm giving you a chance.»
«So you are and I accept it,» said the man in black, and he began to take off his sword and scabbard. «Although, frankly, I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting.»
«I tell you what I tell everybody,» Fezzik explained. «I cannot help being the biggest and strongest; it's not my fault.»
«I'm not blaming you,» said the man in black.
«Let's get to it then,» Fezzik said, and he dropped his rock and got into fighting position, watching as the man in black slowly moved toward him. For a moment, Fezzik felt almost wistful. This was clearly a good fellow, even if he had killed Inigo. He didn't complain or try and beg or bribe. He just accepted his fate. No complaining, nothing like that. Obviously a criminal of character. (Was he a criminal, though, Fezzik wondered. Surely the mask would indicate that. Or was it worse than that: was he disfigured? His face burned away by acid perhaps? Or perhaps born hideous?)
«Why do you wear a mask and hood?» Fezzik asked.
«I think everybody will in the near future» was the man in black's reply. «They're terribly comfortable.»
They faced each other on the mountain path. There was a moment's pause. Then they engaged. Fezzik let the man in black fiddle around for a bit, tested the man's strength, which was considerable for someone who wasn't a giant. He let the man in black feint and dodge and try a hold here, a hold there. Then, when he was quite sure the man in black would not go to his maker embarrassed, Fezzik locked his arms tight around.
Fezzik lifted.
And squeezed.
And squeezed.
Then he took the remains of the man in black, snapped him one way, snapped him the other, cracked him with one hand in the neck, with the other at the spine base, locked his legs up, rolled his limp arms around them, and tossed the entire bundle of what had once been human into a nearby crevice.
That was the theory, anyway.
In fact, what happened was this:
Fezzik lifted.
And squeezed.
And the man in black slipped free.
Hmmm, thought Fezzik, that certainly was a surprise. I thought for sure I had him. «You're very quick,» Fezzik complimented.
«And a good thing too,» said the man in black.
Then they engaged again. This time Fezzik did not give the man in black a chance to fiddle. He just grabbed him, swung him around his head once, twice, smashed his skull against the nearest boulder, pounded him, pummeled him, gave him a final squeeze for good measure and tossed the remains of what once had been alive into a nearby crevice.
Those were his intentions, anyway.
In actuality, he never even got through the grabbing part with much success. Because no sooner had Fezzik's great hands reached out than the man in black dropped and spun and twisted and was loose and free and still quite alive.
I don't understand a thing that's happening, Fezzik thought. Could I be losing my strength? Could there be a mountain disease that takes your strength? There was a desert disease that took my parents' strength. That must be it, I must have caught a plague, but if that is it, why isn't he weak? No, I must still be strong, it has to be something else, now what could it be?
Suddenly he knew. He had not fought against one man in so long he had all but forgotten how. He had been fighting groups and gangs and bunches for so many years, that the idea of having but a single opponent was slow in making itself known to him. Because you fought them entirely differently. When there were twelve against you, you made certain moves, tried certain holds, acted in certain ways. When there was but one, you had to completely readjust yourself. Quickly now, Fezzik went back through time. How had he fought the champion of Sandiki? He flashed through that fight in his mind, then reminded himself of all the other victories against other champions, the men from Ispir and Simal and Bolu and Zile. He remembered fleeing Constantinople because he had beaten their champion so quickly. So easily. Yes, Fezzik thought. Of course. And suddenly he readjusted his style to what it once had been.
But by that time the man in black had him by the throat!
The man in black was riding him, and his arms were locked across Fezzik's windpipe, one in front, one behind. Fezzik reached back but the man in black was hard to grasp. Fezzik could not get his arms around to his back and dislodge the enemy. Fezzik ran at a boulder and, at the last moment, spun around so that the man in black received the main force of the charge. It was a terrible jolt; Fezzik knew it was.
But the grip on his windpipe grew ever tighter.
Fezzik charged the boulder again, again spun, and again he knew the power of the blow the man in black had taken. But still the grip remained. Fezzik clawed at the man in black's arms. He pounded his giant fists against them.
By now he had no air.
Fezzik continued to struggle. He could feel a hollowness in his legs now; he could see the world beginning to pale. But he did not give up. He was the mighty Fezzik, lover of rhymes, and you did not give up, no matter what. Now the hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing.
Fezzik went to his knees.
He pounded still, but feebly. He fought still, but his blows would not have harmed a child. No air. There was no more air. There was no more anything, not for Fezzik, not in this world. I am beaten, I am going to die, he thought just before he fell onto the mountain path.
He was only half wrong.
There is an instant between unconsciousness and death, and as the giant pitched onto the rocky path, that instant happened, and just before it happened, the man in black let go. He staggered to his feet and leaned against a boulder until he could walk. Fezzik lay sprawled, faintly breathing. The man in black looked around for a rope to secure the giant, gave up the search almost as soon as he'd begun. What good were ropes against strength like this. He would simply snap them. The man in black made his way back to where he'd dropped his sword. He put it back on.
Two down and (the hardest) one to go . . .

Vizzini was waiting for him.
Indeed, he had set out a little picnic spread. From the knapsack that he always carried, he had taken a small handkerchief and on it he had placed two wine goblets. In the center was a small leather wine holder and, beside it, some cheese and some apples. The spot could not have been lovelier: a high point of the mountain path with a splendid view all the way back to Florin Channel. Buttercup lay helpless beside the picnic, gagged and tied and blindfolded. Vizzini held his long knife against her white throat.
«Welcome,» Vizzini called when the man in black was almost upon them.
The man in black stopped and surveyed the situation.
«You've beaten my Turk,» Vizzini said.
«It would seem so.»
«And now it is down to you. And it is down to me.»
«So that would seem too,» the man in black said, edging just a half-step closer to the hunchback's long knife.
With a smile the hunchback pushed the knife harder against Buttercup's throat. It was about to bring blood. «If you wish her dead, by all means keep moving,» Vizzini said.
The man in black froze.
«Better,» Vizzini nodded.
No sound now beneath the moonlight.
«I understand completely what you are trying to do,» the Sicilian said finally, «and I want it quite clear that I resent your behavior. You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.»
«Let me explain—« the man in black began, starting to edge forward.
«You're killing her!» the Sicilian screamed, shoving harder with the knife. A drop of blood appeared now at Buttercup's throat, red against white.
The man in black retreated. «Let me explain,» he said again, but from a distance.
Again the hunchback interrupted. «There is nothing you can tell me I do not already know. I have not had the schooling equal to some, but for knowledge outside of books, there is no one in the world close to me. People say I read minds, but that is not, in all honesty, true. I merely predict the truth using logic and wisdom, and I say you are a kidnapper, admit it.»
«I will admit that, as a ransom item, she has value; nothing more.»
«I have been instructed to do certain things to her. It is very important that I follow my instructions. If I do this properly, I will be in demand for life. And my instructions do not include ransom, they include death. So your explanations are meaningless; we cannot do business together. You wish to keep her alive for ransom, whereas it is terribly important to me that she stop breathing in the very near future.»
«Has it occurred to you that I have gone to great effort and expense, as well as personal sacrifice, to reach this point,» the man in black replied. «And that if I fail now, I might get very angry. And if she stops breathing in the very near future, it is entirely possible that you will catch the same fatal illness?»
«I have no doubt you could kill me. Any man who can get by Inigo and Fezzik would have no trouble disposing of me. However, has it occurred to you that if you did that, then neither of us would get what we want—you having lost your ransom item, me my life.»
«We are at an impasse then,» said the man in black.
«I fear so,» said the Sicilian. «I cannot compete with you physically, and you are no match for my brains.»
«You are that smart?»
«There are no words to contain all my wisdom. I am so cunning, crafty and clever, so filled with deceit, guile and chicanery, such a knave, so shrewd, cagey as well as calculating, as diabolical as I am vulpine, as tricky as I am untrustworthy . . . well, I told you there were not words invented yet to explain how great my brain is, but let me put it this way: the world is several million years old and several billion people have at one time or another trod upon it, but i, vizzini the sicilian, am, speaking with pure candor and modesty, the slickest, sleekest, sliest and wiliest fellow who has yet come down the pike.»
«In that case,» said the man in black, «I challenge you to a battle of wits.»
Vizzini had to smile. «For the Princess?»
«You read my mind.»
«It just seems that way, I told you. It's merely logic and wisdom. To the death?»
«Correct again.»
«I accept,» cried Vizzini. «Begin the battle!»
«Pour the wine,» said the man in black.
Vizzini filled the two goblets with deep-red liquid.
The man in black pulled from his dark clothing a small packet and handed it to the hunchback. «Open it and inhale, but be careful not to touch.»
Vizzini took the packet and followed instructions. «I smell nothing.»
The man in black took the packet again. «What you do not smell is called iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless and dissolves immediately in any kind of liquid. It also happens to be the deadliest poison known to man.»
Vizzini was beginning to get excited.
«I don't suppose you'd hand me the goblets,» said the man in black.
Vizzini shook his head. «Take them yourself. My long knife does not leave her throat.»
The man in black reached down for the goblets. He took them and turned away.
Vizzini cackled aloud in anticipation.
The man in black busied himself a long moment. Then he turned again with a goblet in each hand. Very carefully, he put the goblet in his right hand in front of Vizzini and put the goblet in his left hand across the kerchief from the hunchback. He sat down in front of the left-hand goblet, and dropped the empty iocane packet by the cheese.
«Your guess,» he said. «Where is the poison?»
«Guess?» Vizzini cried. «I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.»
«The battle of wits has begun,» said the man in black. «It ends when you decide and we drink the wine and find out who is right and who is dead. We both drink, need I add, and swallow, naturally, at precisely the same time.»
«It's all so simple,» said the hunchback. «All I have to do is deduce, from what I know of you, the way your mind works. Are you the kind of man who would put the poison into his own glass, or into the glass of his enemy?»
«You're stalling,» said the man in black.
«I'm relishing is what I'm doing,» answered the Sicilian. «No one has challenged my mind in years and I love it. . . . By the way, may I smell both goblets?»
«Be my guest. Just be sure you put them down the same way you found them.»
The Sicilian sniffed his own glass; then he reached across the kerchief for the goblet of the man in black and sniffed that. «As you said, odorless.»
«As I also said, you're stalling.»
The Sicilian smiled and stared at the wine goblets. «Now a great fool,» he began, «would place the wine in his own goblet, because he would know that only another great fool would reach first for what he was given. I am clearly not a great fool, so I will clearly not reach for your wine.»
«That's your final choice?»
«No. Because you knew I was not a great fool, so you would know that I would never fall for such a trick. You would count on it. So I will clearly not reach for mine either.»
«Keep going,» said the man in black.
«I intend to.» The Sicilian reflected a moment. «We have now decided the poisoned cup is most likely in front of you. But the poison is powder made from iocane and iocane comes only from Australia and Australia, as everyone knows, is peopled with criminals and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as I don't trust you, which means I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.»
The man in black was starting to get nervous.
«But, again, you must have suspected I knew the origins of iocane, so you would have known I knew about the criminals and criminal behavior, and therefore i can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.»
«Truly you have a dizzying intellect,» whispered the man in black.
«You have beaten my Turk, which means you are exceptionally strong, and exceptionally strong men are convinced that they are too powerful ever to die, too powerful even for iocane poison, so you could have put it in your cup, trusting on your strength to save you; thus I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.»
The man in black was very nervous now.
«But you also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, because he studied many years for his excellence, and if you can study, you are clearly more than simply strong; you are aware of how mortal we all are, and you do not wish to die, so you would have kept the poison as far from yourself as possible; therefore I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.»
«You're just trying to make me give something away with all this chatter,» said the man in black angrily. «Well it won't work. You'll learn nothing from me, that I promise you.»
«I have already learned everything from you,» said the Sicilian. «I know where the poison is.»
«Only a genius could have deduced as much.»
«How fortunate for me that I happen to be one,» said the hunchback, growing more and more amused now.
«You cannot frighten me,» said the man in black, but there was fear all through his voice.
«Shall we drink then?»
«Pick, choose, quit dragging it out, you don't know, you couldn't know.»
The Sicilian only smiled at the outburst. Then a strange look crossed his features and he pointed off behind the man in black. «What in the world can that be?» he asked.
The man in black turned around and looked. «I don't see anything.»
«Oh, well, I could have sworn I saw something, no matter.» The Sicilian began to laugh.
«I don't understand what's so funny,» said the man in black.
«Tell you in a minute,» said the hunchback. «But first let's drink.»
And he picked up his own wine goblet.
The man in black picked up the one in front of him.
They drank.
«You guessed wrong,» said the man in black.
«You only think I guessed wrong,» said the Sicilian, his laughter ringing louder. «That's what's so funny. I switched glasses when your back was turned.»
There was nothing for the man in black to say.
«Fool!» cried the hunchback. «You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.'»
He was quite cheery until the iocane powder took effect.
The man in black stepped quickly over the corpse, then roughly ripped the blindfold from the Princess's eyes.
«I heard everything that happ—« Buttercup began, and then she said «Oh» because she had never been next to a dead man before. «You killed him,» she whispered finally.
«I let him die laughing,» said the man in black. «Pray I do as much for you.» He lifted her, slashed her bonds away, put her on her feet, started to pull her along.
«Please,» Buttercup said. «Give me a moment to gather myself.» The man in black released his grip.
Buttercup rubbed her wrists, stopped, massaged her ankles. She took a final look at the Sicilian. «To think,» she murmured, «all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.»
«They were both poisoned,» said the man in black. «I've spent the past two years building up immunity to iocane powder.»
Buttercup looked up at him. He was terrifying to her, masked and hooded and dangerous; his voice was strained, rough. «Who are you?» she asked.
«I am no one to be trifled with,» replied the man in black. «That is all you ever need to know.» And with that he yanked her upright. «You've had your moment.» Again he pulled her after him, and this time she could do nothing but follow.
They moved along the mountain path. The moonlight was very bright, and there were rocks everywhere, and to Buttercup it all looked dead and yellow, like the moon. She had just spent several hours with three men who were openly planning to kill her. So why, she wondered, was she more frightened now than then? Who was the horrid hooded figure to strike fear in her so? What could be worse than dying? «i will pay you a great deal of money to release me,» she managed to say.
The man in black glanced at her. «You are rich, then?»
«I will be,» Buttercup said. «Whatever you want for ransom, I promise I'll get it for you if you'll let me go.»
The man in black just laughed.
«I was not speaking in jest.»
«You promise? You? I should release you on your promise? What is that worth? The vow of a woman? Oh, that is very funny, Highness. Spoken in jest or not.» They proceeded along the mountain path to an open space. The man in black stopped then. There were a million stars fighting for prominence and for a moment he seemed to be intent on nothing less than studying them all, as Buttercup watched his eyes flick from constellation to constellation behind his mask.
Then, with no warning, he spun off the path, heading into wild terrain, pulling her behind him.
She stumbled; he pulled her to her feet; again she fell; again he righted her.
«I cannot move this quickly.»
«You can! And you will! Or you will suffer greatly. Do you think I could make you suffer greatly?»
Buttercup nodded.
«Then run !» cried the man in black, and he broke into a run himself, flying across rocks in the moonlight, pulling the Princess behind him.
She did her best to keep up. She was frightened as to what he would do to her, so she dared not fall again.
After five minutes, the man in black stopped dead. «Catch your breath,» he commanded.
Buttercup nodded, gasped in air, tried to quiet her heart. But then they were off again, with no warning, dashing across the mountainous terrain, heading . . .
«Where . . . do you take me?» Buttercup gasped, when he again gave her a chance to rest.
«Surely even someone as arrogant as you cannot expect me to give an answer.»
«It does not matter if you tell or not. He will find you.»
« 'He,' Highness?»
«Prince Humperdinck. There is no greater hunter. He can track a falcon on a cloudy day; he can find you.»
«You have confidence that your dearest love will save you, do you?»
«I never said he was my dearest love, and yes, he will save me; that I know.»
«You admit you do not love your husband-to-be? Fancy. An honest woman. You're a rare specimen, Highness.»
«The Prince and I have never from the beginning lied to each other. He knows I do not love him.»
«Are not capable of love is what you mean.»
«I'm very capable of love,» Buttercup said.
«Hold your tongue, I think.»
«I have loved more deeply than a killer like you can possibly imagine.»
He slapped her.
«That is the penalty for lying, Highness. Where I come from, when a woman lies, she is reprimanded.»
«But I spoke the truth, I did, I—« Buttercup saw his hand rise a second time, so she stopped quickly, fell dead silent.
Then they began to run again.
They did not speak for hours. They just ran, and then, as if he could guess when she was spent, he would stop, release her hand. She would try to catch her breath for the next dash she was sure would come. Without a sound, he would grab her and off they would go.
It was close to dawn when they first saw the Armada.
They were running along the edge of a towering ravine. They seemed almost to be at the top of the world. When they stopped, Buttercup sank down to rest. The man in black stood silently over her. «Your love comes, not alone,» he said then.
Buttercup did not understand.
The man in black pointed back the way they had come.
Buttercup stared, and as she did, the waters of Florin Channel seemed as filled with light as the sky was filled with stars.
«He must have ordered every ship in Florin after you,» the man in black said. «Such a sight I have never seen.» He stared at all the lanterns on all the ships as they moved.
«You can never escape him,» Buttercup said. «If you release me, I promise that you will come to no harm.»
«You are much too generous; I could never accept such an offer.»
«I offered you your life, that was generous enough.»
«Highness!» said the man in black, and his hands were suddenly at her throat. «If there is talk of life to be done, let me do it.»
«You would not kill me. You did not steal me from murderers to murder me yourself.»
«Wise as well as loving,» said the man in black. He jerked her to her feet, and they ran along the edge of the great ravine. It was hundreds of feet deep, and filled with rocks and trees and lifting shadows. Abruptly, the man in black stopped, stared back at the Armada. «To be honest,» he said, «I had not expected quite so many.»
«You can never predict my Prince; that is why he is the greatest hunter.»
«I wonder,» said the man in black, «will he stay in one group or will he divide, some to search the coastline, some to follow your path on land? What do you think?»
«I only know he will find me. And if you have not given me my freedom first, he will not treat you gently.»
«Surely he must have discussed things with you? The thrill of the hunt. What has he done in the past with many ships?»
«We do not discuss hunting, that I can assure you.»
«Not hunting, not love, what do you talk about?»
«We do not see all that much of each other.»
«Tender couple.»
Buttercup could feel the upset coming. «We are always very honest with each other. Not everyone can say as much.»
«May I please tell you something, Highness? You're very cold—«
«I'm not—«
«—very cold and very young, and if you live, I think you'll turn to hoarfrost—«
« Why do you pick at me? I have come to terms with my life, and that is my affair—I am not cold, I swear, but I have decided certain things, it is best for me to ignore emotion; I have not been happy dealing with it—« Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high. «I loved once,» Buttercup said after a moment. «It worked out badly.»
«Another rich man? Yes, and he left you for a richer woman.»
«No. Poor. Poor and it killed him.»
«Were you sorry? Did you feel pain? Admit that you felt nothing —«
«Do not mock my grief! I died that day .»
The Armada began to fire signal cannons. The explosions echoed through the mountains. The man in black stared as the ships began to change formation.
And while he was watching the ships, Buttercup shoved him with all her strength remaining.
For a moment, the man in black teetered at the ravine edge. His arms spun like windmills fighting for balance. They swung and gripped the air and then he began his slide.
Down went the man in black.
Stumbling and torn and reaching out to stop his descent, but the ravine was too steep, and nothing could be done.
Down, down.
Rolling over rocks, spinning, out of all control.
Buttercup stared at what she had done.
Finally he rested far below her, silent and without motion. «You can die too for all I care,» she said, and then she turned away.
Words followed her. Whispered from far, weak and warm and familiar. «As . . . you . . . wish . . .»
Dawn in the mountains. Buttercup turned back to the source of the sound and stared down as, in first light, the man in black struggled to remove his mask.
«Oh, my sweet Westley,» Buttercup said. «What have I done to you now?»
From the bottom of the ravine, there came only silence.
Buttercup hesitated not a moment. Down she went after him, keeping her feet as best she could, and as she began, she thought she heard him crying out to her over and over, but she could not make sense of his words, because inside her now there was the thunder of walls crumbling, and that was noise enough.
Besides, her balance quickly was gone and the ravine had her. She fell fast and she fell hard, but what did that matter, since she would have gladly dropped a thousand feet onto a bed of nails if Westley had been waiting at the bottom.
Down, down.
Tossed and spinning, crashing, torn, out of all control, she rolled and twisted and plunged, cartwheeling toward what was left of her beloved. . . .

From his position at the point of the Armada, Prince Humperdinck stared up at the Cliffs of Insanity. This was just like any other hunt. He made himself think away the quarry. It did not matter if you were after an antelope or a bride-to-be; the procedures held. You gathered evidence. Then you acted. You studied, then you performed. If you studied too little, the chances were strong that your actions would also be too late. You had to take time. And so, frozen in thought, he continued to stare up the sheer face of the Cliffs.
Obviously, someone had recently climbed them. There were foot scratchings all the way up a straight line, which meant, most certainly, a rope, an arm-over-arm climb up a thousand-foot rope with occasional foot kicks for balance. To make such a climb required both strength and planning, so the Prince made those marks in his brain: my enemy is strong; my enemy is not impulsive.
Now his eyes reached a point perhaps three hundred feet from the top. Here it began to get interesting. Now the foot scratchings were deeper, more frequent, and they followed no direct ascending line. Either someone left the rope three hundred feet from the top intentionally, which made no sense, or the rope was cut while that someone was still three hundred feet from safety. For clearly, this last part of the climb was made up the rock face itself. But who had such talent? And why had he been called to exercise it at such a deadly time, seven hundred feet above disaster?
«I must examine the tops of the Cliffs of Insanity,» the Prince said, without bothering to turn.
From behind him, Count Rugen only said, «Done,» and awaited further instructions.
«Send half the Armada south along the coastline, the other north. They should meet by twilight near the Fire Swamp. Our ship will sail to the first landing possibility, and you will follow me with your soldiers. Ready the whites.»
Count Rugen signaled the cannoneer, and the Prince's instructions boomed along the Cliffs. Within minutes, the Armada had begun to split, with only the Prince's giant ship sailing alone closest to the coastline, looking for a landing possibility.
«There!» the Prince ordered, some time later, and his ship began maneuvering into the cove for a safe place to anchor. That took time, but not much, because the Captain was skilled and, more than that, the Prince was quick to lose patience and no one dared risk that.
Humperdinck jumped from ship to shore, a plank was lowered, and the whites were led to ground. Of all his accomplishments, none pleased the Prince as did these horses. Someday he would have an army of them, but getting the bloodlines perfect was a slow business. He now had four whites and they were identical. Snowy, tireless giants. Twenty hands high. On flatland, nothing could catch them, and even on hills and rocky terrain, there was nothing short of Araby close to their equal. The Prince, when rushed, rode all four, bareback, the only way he ever rode, riding one, leading three, changing beasts in mid-stride, so that no single animal had to bear his bulk to the tiring point.
Now he mounted and was gone.
It took him considerably less than an hour to reach the edge of the Cliffs of Insanity. He dismounted, went to his knees, commenced his study of the terrain. There had been a rope tied around a giant oak. The bark at the base was broken and scraped, so probably whoever first reached the top untied the rope and whoever was on the rope at that moment was three hundred feet from the peak and somehow survived the climb.
A great jumble of footprints caused him trouble. It was hard to ascertain what had gone on. Perhaps a conference, because two sets of footprints seemed to lead off while one remained pacing the cliff edge. Then there were two on the cliff edge. Humperdinck examined the prints until he was certain of two things: (1) a fencing match had taken place, (2) the combatants were both masters. The stride length, the quickness of the foot feints, all clearly revealed to his unfailing eye, made him reassess his second conclusion. They were at least masters. Probably better.
Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on smelling out the blood. Surely, in a match of such ferocity, blood must have been spilled. Now it was a matter of giving his entire body over to his sense of smell. The Prince had worked at this for many years, ever since a wounded tigress had surprised him from a tree limb while he was tracking her. He had let his eyes follow the blood hunt
then, and it had almost killed him. Now he trusted only his olfactories. If there was blood within a hundred yards, he would find it.
He opened his eyes, moved without hesitation toward a group of large boulders until he found the blood drops. There were few of them, and they were dry. But less than three hours old. Humperdinck smiled. When you had the whites under you, three hours was a finger snap.
He retraced the duel then, for it confused him. It seemed to range from cliff edge and back, then return to the cliff edge. And sometimes the left foot seemed to be leading, sometimes the right, which made no logical sense at all. Clearly swordsmen were changing hands, but why would a master do that unless his good arm was wounded to the point of uselessness, and that clearly had not happened, because a wound of that depth would have left blood spoors and there was simply not enough blood in the area to indicate that.
Strange, strange. Humperdinck continued his wanderings. Stranger still, the battle could not have ended in death. He knelt by the outline of a body. Clearly, a man had lain unconscious here. But again, no blood.
«There was a mighty duel,» Prince Humperdinck said, directing his comment toward Count Rugen, who had finally caught up, together with a contingent of a hundred mounted men-at-arms. «My guess would be . . .» And for a moment the Prince paused, following footsteps. «Would be that whoever fell here, ran off there,» and he pointed one way, «and that whoever was the victor ran off along the mountain path in almost precisely the opposite direction. It is also my opinion that the victor was following the path taken by the Princess.»
«Shall we follow them both?» the Count asked.
«I think not,» Prince Humperdinck replied. «Whoever is gone is of minimal importance, since whoever has the Princess is the whoever we're after. And because we don't know the nature of the trap we might be being led into, we need all the arms we have in one band. Clearly, this had been planned by countrymen of Guilder, and nothing must ever be put past them.»
«You think this is a trap, then?» the Count asked.
«I always think everything is a trap until proven otherwise,» the Prince answered. «Which is why I'm still alive.»
And with that, he was back aboard a white and galloping.
When he reached the mountain path where the hand fight happened, the Prince did not even bother dismounting. Everything that could be seen was quite visible from horseback.
«Someone has beaten a giant,» he said, when the Count was close enough. «The giant has run away, do you see?»
The Count, of course, saw nothing but rock and mountain path. «I would not think to doubt you.»
«And look there!» cried the Prince, because now he saw, for the first time, in the rubble of the mountain path, the footsteps of a woman. «The Princess is alive!»
And again the whites were thundering across the mountain.
When the Count caught up with him again, the Prince was kneeling over the still body of a hunchback. The Count dismounted. «Smell this,» the Prince said, and he handed up a goblet.
«Nothing,» the Count said. «No odor at all.»
«Iocane,» the Prince replied. «I would bet my life on it. I know of nothing else that kills so silently.» He stood up then. «The Princess was still alive; her footprints follow the path.» He shouted at the hundred mounted men: «There will be great suffering in Guilder if she dies!» On foot now, he ran along the mountain path, following the footsteps that he alone could see. And when those footsteps left the path for wilder terrain, he followed still. Strung out behind him, the Count and all the soldiers did their best to keep up. Men stumbled, horses fell, even the Count tripped from time to time. Prince Humperdinck never even broke stride. He ran steadily, mechanically, his barrel legs pumping like a metronome.
It was two hours after dawn when he reached the steep ravine.
«Odd,» he said to the Count, who was tiring badly.
The Count continued only to breathe deeply.
«Two bodies fell to the bottom, and they did not come back up.»
«That is odd,» the Count managed.
«No, that isn't what's odd,» the Prince corrected. «Clearly, the kidnapper did not come back up because the climb was too steep, and our cannons must have let him know that they were closely pursued. His decision, which I applaud, was to make better time running along the ravine floor.»
The Count waited for the Prince to continue.
«It's just odd that a man who is a master fencer, a defeater of giants, an expert in the use of iocane powder, would not know what this ravine opens into.»
«And what is that?» asked the Count.
«The Fire Swamp,» said Prince Humperdinck.
«Then we have him,» said the Count.
«Precisely so.» It was a well-documented trait of his to smile only just before the kill; his smile was very much in evidence now. . . .

Westley, indeed, had not the least idea that he was racing dead into the Fire Swamp. He knew only, once Buttercup was down at the ravine bottom beside him, that to climb out would take, as Prince Humperdinck had assumed, too much time. Westley noted only that the ravine bottom was flat rock and heading in the general direction he wanted to follow. So he and Buttercup fled along, both of them very much aware that gigantic forces were following them, and, undoubtedly, cutting into their lead.
The ravine grew increasingly sheer as they went along, and Westley soon realized that whereas once he probably could have helped her through the climb, now there was simply no way of doing so. He had made his choice and there was no changing possible: wherever the ravine led was their destination, and that, quite simply, was that.
(At this point in the story, my wife wants it known that she feels violently cheated, not being allowed the scene of reconciliation on the ravine floor between the lovers. My reply to her—

This is me, and I'm not trying to be confusing, but the above paragraph that I'm cutting into now is verbatim Morgenstern; he was continually referring to his wife in the unabridged book, saying that she loved the next section or she thought that, all in all, the book was extraordinarily brilliant. Mrs. Morgenstern was rarely anything but supportive to her husband, unlike some wives I could mention (sorry about that, Helen), but here's the thing: I got rid of almost all the intrusions when he told us what she thought. I didn't think the device added a whole lot, and, besides, he was always complimenting himself through her and today we know that hyping something too much does more harm than good, as any defeated political candidate will tell you when he pays his television bills. The thing of it is, I left this particular reference in because, for once, i totally happen to agree with mrs. morgenstern. i think it was unfair not to show the reunion. So I wrote one of my own, what I felt Buttercup and Westley might have said, but Hiram, my editor, felt that made me just as unfair as Morgenstern here. If you're going to abridge a book in the author's own words, you can't go around sticking your own in. That was Hiram's point, and we really went round and round, arguing over, I guess, a period of a month, in person, through letters, on the phone. Finally we compromised to this extent: this, what you're reading in the black print, is strict Morgenstern. Verbatim. Cut, yes; changed, no. But I got Hiram to agree that Harcourt would at least print up my scene—it's all of three pages; big deal—and if any of you want to see what it came out like, drop a note or postcard to Hiram Haydn at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 757 Third Avenue, New York City, and just mention you'd like the reunion scene. Don't forget to include your return address; you 'd be stunned at how many people send in for things and don't put their return address down. Harcourt agreed to spring for the postage costs, so your total expense is the note or card or whatever. It would really upset me if I turned out to be the only modem American writer who gave the impression that he was with a generous publishing house (they all stink—sorry about that, Mr. Jovanovich), so let me just add here that the reason they are so generous in paying this giant postage bill is because they fully expect nobody to write in. So please, if you have the least interest at all or even if you don't, write in for my reunion scene. You don't have to read it—I'm not asking that—but I would love to cost those publishing geniuses a few dollars, because, let's face it, they're not spending much on advertising my books. Let me just repeat the address for you, ZIP code and all: