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Six

The Festivities

THIS IS ONE of those chapters again where Professor Bongiorno of Columbia, the Florinese guru, claims that Morgenstern's satiric genius is at its fullest flower. (That's the way this guy talks: 'fullest flower,' 'delicious drolleries'—on and on.)

This festivities chapter is mostly detailed descriptions of guess what? Bingo! The festivities. It's like eighty-nine days till the nuptials and every high muckamuck in Florin has to give a 'do' for the couple, and what Morgenstern fills his pages with is how the various richies of the time entertained. What kind of parties, what kind of food, who did the decorations, how did the seating arrangements get settled, all that kind of thing.

The only interesting part, but it's not worth going through forty-four pages for, is that Prince Humperdinck gets more and more interested and mannerly toward Buttercup, cutting down even a little on his hunting activities. And, more important, because of the foiling of the kidnapping attempt, three things happen: (1) everyone is pretty well convinced that the plot was engineered by Guilder, so relations between the countries are more than a little strained; (2) Buttercup is just adored by everybody because the rumors are all over that she acted very brave and even came through the Fire Swamp alive and (3) Prince Humperdinck is, at last, in his own land, a hero. He was never popular, what with his hunting fetish and leaving the country to kind of rot once his old man got senile, but the way he foiled the kidnapping made everybody realize that this was some brave fella and they were lucky to have him next in line to lead them.

Anyhow, these forty-four pages cover just about the first month of party giving. And it's not till the end of that, that, for my money, things get going again. Buttercup is in bed, pooped, it's late, the end of another long party, and as she waits for sleep, she wonders what sea Westley is riding on, and the giant and the Spaniard, whatever happened to them? So eventually, in three quick flashbacks, Morgenstern returns to what I think is the story.

***

WHEN INIGO REGAINED consciousness, it was still night on the Cliffs of Insanity. Far below, the waters of Florin Channel pounded. Inigo stirred, blinked, tried to rub his eyes, couldn't.

His arms were tied together around a tree.

Inigo blinked again, banishing cobwebs. He had gone on his knees to the man in black, ready for death. Clearly, the victor had other notions. Inigo looked around as best he could, and there it was, the six-fingered sword, glittering in the moonlight like lost magic. Inigo stretched his right leg as far as it would go and managed to touch the handle. Then it was simply a matter of inching the weapon close enough to be graspable by one hand, and then it was an even simpler task to slash his bindings. He was dizzy when he stood, and he rubbed his head behind his ear, where the man in black had struck him. A lump, sizable, to be sure, but not a major problem.

The major problem was what to do now?

Vizzini had strict instructions for occasions such as this, when a plan went wrong: Go back to the beginning. Back to the beginning and wait for Vizzini, then regroup, replan, start again. Inigo had even made a little rhyme out of it for Fezzik so the giant would not have problems remembering what to do in time of trouble: "Fool, fool, back to the beginning is the rule."

Inigo knew precisely where the beginning was. They had gotten the job in Florin City itself, the Thieves Quarter. Vizzini had made the arrangements alone, as he always did. He had met with their employer, had accepted the job, had planned it, all in the Thieves Quarter. So the Thieves Quarter was clearly the place to go.

Only, Inigo hated it there. Everybody was so dangerous, big, mean and muscular, and so what if he was the greatest fencer in the world, who'd know it to look at him? He looked like a skinny Spanish guy it might be fun to rob. You couldn't walk around with a sign saying, "Be careful, this is the greatest fencer since the death of the Wizard of Corsica. Do not burgle."

Besides, and here Inigo felt deep pain, he wasn't that great a fencer, not anymore, he couldn't be, hadn't he just been beaten? Once, true, he had been a titan, but now, now—

***

What happens here that you aren't going to read is the six-page soliloquy from Inigo in which Morgenstern, through Inigo, reflects on the anguish of fleeting glory. The reason for the soliloquy here is that Morgenstern's previous book had gotten bombed by the critics and also hadn't sold beans. (Aside—did you know that Robert Browning's first book of poems didn't sell one copy? True. Even his mother didn't buy it at her local bookstore. Have you ever heard anything more humiliating? How would you like to have been Browning and it's your first book and you have these secret hopes that now, now, you'll be somebody. Established, Important. And you give it a week before you ask the publisher how things are going, because you don't want to seem pushy or anything. And then maybe you drop by, and it was probably all very English and understated in those days, and you're Browning and you chitchat around a bit, before you drop the biggie: 'Oh, by the way, any notions yet on how my poems might be doing?' And then his editor, who has been dreading this moment, probably says, 'Well, you know how it is with poetry these days; nothing's taking off like it used to, requires a bit of time for the word to get around.' And then finally, somebody had to say it. 'None, Bob. Sorry, Bob, no, we haven't yet had one authenticated sale. We thought for a bit that Hatchards had a potential buyer down by Piccadilly, but it didn't quite work out. Sorry, Bob; of course we'll keep you posted in the event of a breakthrough.' End of Aside.)

Anyway, Inigo finishes his speech to the Cliffs and spends the next few hours finding a fisherman who sails him back to Florin City.

***

THE THIEVES QUARTER was worse than he remembered. Always, before, Fezzik had been with him, and they made rhymes, and Fezzik was enough to keep any thief away.

Inigo moved panicked up the dark streets, desperately afraid. Why this giant fear? What was he afraid of?

He sat on a filthy stoop and pondered. Around him there were cries in the night and, from the alehouses, vulgar laughter. He was afraid, he realized then, because as he sat there, gripping the six-fingered sword for confidence, he was suddenly back to what he had been before Vizzini had found him.

A failure.

A man without point, with no attachment to tomorrow. Inigo had not touched brandy in years. Now he felt his fingers fumbling for money. Now he heard his footsteps running toward the nearest alehouse. Now he saw his money on the counter. Now he felt the brandy bottle in his hands.

Back to the stoop he ran. He opened the bottle. He smelled the rough brandy. He took a sip. He coughed. He took a swallow. He coughed again. He gulped it down and coughed and gulped some more and half began a smile.

His fears were starting to leave him.

After all, why should he have even been afraid? He was Inigo Montoya (the bottle was half gone now), son of the great Domingo Montoya, so what was there in the world worth fearing? (Now all the brandy was gone.) How dare fear approach a wizard such as Inigo Montoya? Well, never again. (Into the second bottle.) Never never never never again.

He sat alone and confident and strong. His life was straight and fine. He had money enough for brandy, and if you had that, you had the world.

The stoop was wretched and bleak. Inigo slumped there, quite contented, clutching the bottle in his once-trembling hands. Existence was really very simple when you did what you were told. And nothing could be simpler or better than what he had in store.

All he had to do was wait and drink until Vizzini came....

FEZZIK HAD NO idea how long he was unconscious. He only knew, as he staggered to his feet on the mountain path, that his throat was very sore where the man in black had strangled him.

What to do?

The plans had all gone wrong. Fezzik closed his eyes, trying to think—there was a proper place to go when plans went wrong, but he couldn't quite remember it. Inigo had even made a rhyme up for him so he wouldn't forget, and now, even with that, he was so stupid he had forgotten. Was that it? Was it "Stupid, stupid, go and wait for Vizzini with Cupid"? That rhymed, but where was the Cupid? "Dummy, dummy, go out now and fill your tummy." That rhymed too, but what kind of instructions were those?

What to do, what to do?

"Dunce, dunce, use your brains and do it right for once"? No help. Nothing was any help. He never had done anything right, not in his whole life, until Vizzini came, and without another thought, Fezzik ran off into the night after the Sicilian.

Vizzini was napping when he got there. He had been drinking wine and dozed off. Fezzik dropped to his knees and put his hands in prayer position. "Vizzini, I'm sorry," he began.

Vizzini napped on.

Fezzik shook him gently.

Vizzini did not wake.

Not so gently this time.

Nothing.

"Oh I see, you're dead," Fezzik said. He stood up. "He's dead, Vizzini is," he said softly. And then, with not a bit of help from his brain, a great scream of panic burst from his throat into the night: "Inigo!" and he whirled back down the mountain path, because if Inigo was alive, it would be all right; it wouldn't be the same, no, it could never be that without Vizzini to order them and insult them as only he could, but at least there would be time for poetry, and when Fezzik reached the Cliffs of Insanity he said, "Inigo, Inigo, here I am" to the rocks and "I'm here, Inigo; it's your Fezzik" to the trees and "Inigo, INIGO, ANSWER ME PLEASE" all over until there was no other conclusion to draw but that just as there was now no Vizzini, so there was also no Inigo, and that was hard.

It was, in point of fact, too hard for Fezzik, so he began to run, crying out, "Be with you in a minute, Inigo," and "Right behind you, Inigo" and "Hey, Inigo, wait up" (wait up, straight up which was the way he ran, and wouldn't there be fun with rhymes once he and Inigo were together again), but after an hour or so of shouting his throat gave out because he had, after all, been strangled almost to death in the very recent past. On he ran, on and on and on until finally he reached a tiny village and found, just outside town, some nice rocks that formed kind of a cave, almost big enough for him to stretch out in. He sat with his back against a rock and his hands around his knees and his throat hurting until the village boys found him. They held their breath and crept as close as they dared. Fezzik hoped they would go away, so he froze, pretending to be off with Inigo and Inigo would say "barrel" and Fezzik right quick would come back "carol" and maybe they would sing a little something until Inigo said "serenade" and you couldn't stump Fezzik with one that easy because of "centigrade" and then Inigo would make a word about the weather and Fezzik would rhyme it and that was how it went until the village boys stopped being afraid of him. Fezzik could tell that because they were creeping very close to him now and all of a sudden yelling their lungs out and making crazy faces. He didn't really blame them; he looked like the kind of person you did that to, mocked. His clothes were torn and his throat was gone and his eyes were wild and he probably would have yelled too if he'd been their age.

It was only when they found him funny that he found it, though he did not know the word, degrading. No more yelling. Just laughter now. Laughter, Fezzik thought, and then he thought giraffeter, because that's all he was to them, some huge funny thing that couldn't make much noise. Laughter, giraffeter, from now to hereafter.

Fezzik huddled up in his cave and tried looking on the bright side. At least they weren't throwing things at him.

Not yet, anyway.

WESTLEY AWOKE CHAINED in a giant cage. His shoulder was beginning to fester from the gnawing and digging that the R.O.U.S. had done into his flesh. He ignored his discomfort, momentarily, to try and adjust to his surroundings.

He was certainly underground. It was not the lack of windows that made that sure; more the dankness. From somewhere above him now, he could hear animal sounds: an occasional lion roar, the yelp of the cheetah.

Shortly after his return to consciousness, the albino appeared, bloodless, with skin as pale as dying birch. The candlelight that served to illuminate the cage made the albino seem totally like a creature who had never seen the sun. The albino held a tray which carried many things, bandages and food, healing powders and brandy.

"Where are we?" from Westley.

A shrug from the albino.

"Who are you?"

Shrug.

That was almost the entire extent of the fellow's conversation. Westley asked question after question while the albino tended and redressed his wound, then fed him food that was warm and surprisingly good and plentiful.

Shrug.

"Who knows I'm here?"

Shrug.

"Lie, but tell me something—give an answer. Who knows I'm here?"

Whispered: "I know. They know."

"They?"

Shrug.

"The Prince and the Count, you mean?"

Nod.

"And that is all?"

Nod.

"When I was brought in I was half conscious. The Count was giving the orders, but three soldiers were carrying me. They know too."

Shake. Whispered: "Knew."

"They're dead, that's what you're saying?"

Shrug.

"Am I to die then?"

Shrug.

Westley lay back on the floor of the giant underground cage watching as the albino silently reloaded the tray, glided from sight. If the soldiers were dead, surely it was not unreasonable to assume that he would eventually follow. But if they wanted his erasure, surely it was also not unreasonable to assume that they had not the least intention of doing it immediately, else why tend his wounds, why return his strength with good warm food? No, his death would be a while yet. But in the meantime, considering the personalities of his captors, it was finally not unreasonable to assume that they would do their best to make him suffer.

Greatly.

Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him. He would not let them break him. He would hold together against anything and all. If only they gave him sufficient time to make ready, he knew he could defeat pain. It turned out they gave him sufficient time (it was months before the Machine was ready).

But they broke him anyway.

AT THE END of the thirtieth day of festivities, with sixty days more of partying to enjoy, Buttercup was genuinely concerned that she might lack the strength to endure. Smile, smile, hold hands, bow and thank, over and over. She was simply exhausted from one month; how was she to survive twice that?

It turned out, because of the King's health, to be both easy and sad. For with fifty-five days to go, Lotharon began to weaken terribly.

Prince Humperdinck ordered new doctors brought in. (There was still the last miracle man alive, Max, but since they had fired him long before, bringing him back on the case now was simply not deemed wise; if he was incompetent then, when Lotharon was only desperately ill, how could he suddenly be a cure-all now, with Lotharon dying?) The new doctors all agreed on various tried-and-true medications, and within forty-eight hours of their coming on the case, the King was dead.

The wedding date, of course, was unchanged—it wasn't every day a country had a five hundredth anniversary—but all the festivities were either curtailed entirely or vastly cut down. And Prince Humperdinck became, forty-five days before the wedding, King of Florin, and that changed everything, because, before, he had taken nothing but his hunting seriously, and now he had to learn, learn everything, learn to run a country, and he buried himself in books and wise men and how did you tax this and when should you tax that and foreign entanglements and who could be trusted and how far and with what? And before her lovely eyes, Humperdinck changed from a man of fear and action to one of frenzied wisdom, because he had to get it all straight now before any other country dared interfere with the future of Florin, so the wedding, when it actually took place, was a tiny thing and brief, sandwiched in between a ministers' meeting and a treasury crisis, and Buttercup spent her first afternoon as queen wandering around the castle not knowing what in the world to do with herself. It wasn't until King Humperdinck walked out on the balcony with her to greet the gigantic throng that had spent the day in patient waiting that she realized it had happened, she was the Queen, her life, for whatever it was worth, belonged now to the people.

They stood together on the castle balcony, accepting the cheers, the cries, the endless thunderous "hip hips," until Buttercup said, "Please, may I walk once more among them?" and the King said with a nod that she might and down she went again, as on the day of the wedding announcement, radiant and alone, and again the people swept apart to let her pass, weeping and cheering and bowing and—

—and then one person booed.

On the balcony watching it all Humperdinck reacted instantly, gesturing soldiers into the area where the sound had come from, dispatching more troops quickly down to surround the Queen, and like clockwork Buttercup was safe, the booer apprehended and led away.

"Hold a moment," Buttercup said, still shaken by the unexpectedness of what had happened. The soldier who held the booer stopped. "Bring her to me," Buttercup said, and in a moment the booer was right there, eye to eye.

It was an ancient woman, withered and bent, and Buttercup thought of all the faces that had gone by in her lifetime, but this one she could not remember. "Have we met?" the Queen asked.

The old one shook her head.

"Then why? Why on this day? Why do you insult the Queen?"

"Because you are not worthy of cheers," the old woman said, and suddenly she was yelling, "You had love in your hands and you gave it up for gold!" She turned to the crowd. "It is true what I tell you—there was love alongside her in the Fire Swamp and she dropped it from her fingers like garbage, and that is what she is, the Queen of Garbage."

"I had given my word to the Prince—" Buttercup began, but the old woman would not be quieted.

"Ask her how she got through the Fire Swamp? Ask her if she did it alone? She threw love away to be the Queen of Grime, the Queen of Muck—I am old and life means nothing to me, so I am the only person in all this crowd to dare to tell truth, and truth says bow to the Queen of Feculence if you want to, but not I. Cheer the Queen of Slime and Ordure if you want to, but not I. Rave over the beauty of the Queen of Cesspools, but not I. Not I!" She was advancing on Buttercup now.

"Take her away," Buttercup ordered.

But the soldiers could not stop her, and the old woman kept coming on, her voice getting LOUDER and louder and Louder! and louder! and LOUDER and LOUDER! and—

Buttercup woke up screaming.

She was in her bed. Alone. Safe. The wedding was still sixty days away.

But her nightmares had begun.

The next night she dreamed of giving birth to their first child and

***

Interruption, and hey, how about giving old Morgenstern credit for a major league fake-out there. I mean, didn't you think for a while at least that they really were married? I did.

It's one of my biggest memories of my father reading. I had pneumonia, remember, but I was a little better now, and madly caught up in the book, and one thing you know when you're ten is that, no matter what, there's gonna be a happy ending. They can sweat all they want to scare you, the authors, but back of it all you know, you just have no doubt, that in the long run justice is going to win out. And Westley and Buttercup—well, they had their troubles, sure, but they were going to get married and live happily ever after. I would have bet the family fortune if I'd found a sucker big enough to take me on.

Well, when my father got through with that sentence where the wedding was sandwiched between the ministers' meeting and the treasury whatever, I said, 'You read that wrong.'

My father's this little bald barber—remember that too? And kind of illiterate. Well, you just don't challenge a guy who has trouble reading and say he's read something incorrectly, because that's really threatening. 'I'm doing the reading,' he said.

'I know that but you got it wrong. She didn't marry that rotten Humperdinck. She marries Westley.'

'It says right here,' my father began, a little huffy, and he starts going over it again.

'You must have skipped a page then. Something. Get it right, huh?'

By now he was more than a tiny bit upset. 'I skipped nothing. I read the words. The words are there, I read them, good night,' and off he went.

'Hey please, no,' I called after him, but he's stubborn, and, next thing, my mother was in saying, 'Your father says his throat is too sore; I told him not to read so much,' and she tucked and fluffed me and no matter how I battled, it was over. No more story till the next day.

I spent that whole night thinking Buttercup married Humperdinck. It just rocked me. How can I explain it, but the world didn't work that way. Good got attracted to good, evil you flushed down the john and that was that. But their marriage—I couldn't make it jibe. God, did I work at it. First I thought that probably Buttercup had this fantastic effect on Humperdinck and turned him into a kind of Westley, or maybe Westley and Humperdinck turned out to be long-lost brothers and Humperdinck was so happy to get his brother back he said, 'Look, Westley, I didn't realize who you were when I married her so what I'll do is I'll divorce her and you marry her and that way we'll all be happy.' To this day I don't think I was ever more creative.

But it didn't take. Something was wrong and I couldn't lose it. Suddenly there was this discontent gnawing away until it had a place big enough to settle in and then it curled up and stayed there and it's still inside me lurking as I write this now.

The next night, when my father went back to reading and the marriage turned out to have been Buttercup's dream, I screamed I knew it, all along I knew it,' and my father said, 'So you're happy now, it's all right now, we can please continue?' and I said 'Go' and he did.

But I wasn't happy. Oh my ears were happy, I guess, my story sense was happy, my heart too, but in my, I suppose you have to call it 'soul,' there was that damn discontent, shaking its dark head.

All this was never explained to me till I was in my teens and there was this great woman who lived in my hometown, Edith Neisser, dead now, and she wrote terrific books about how we screw up our children—Brothers and Sisters was one of her books, The Eldest Child was another. Published by Harper. Edith doesn't need the plug, seeing, like I said, as she's no longer with us, but if there are any amongst you who are worried that maybe you're not being perfect parents, pick up one of Edith's books while there's still time. I knew her 'cause her kid Ed got his haircuts from my pop, and she was this writer and by my teens I knew, secretly, that was the life for me too, except I couldn't tell anybody. It was too embarrassing—barber's sons, if they hustled, maybe got to be IBM salesmen, but writers? No way. Don't ask me how, but eventually Edith discovered my shhhhhh ambition and from then on, sometimes, we would talk. And I remember once we were having iced tea on the Neisser porch and talking and just outside the porch was their badminton court and I was watching some kids play badminton and Ed had just shellacked me, and as I left the court for the porch, he said, 'Don't worry, it'll all work out, you'll get me next time' and I nodded, and then Ed said, 'And if you don't, you'll beat me at something else.'

I went to the porch and sipped iced tea and Edith was reading this book and she didn't put it down when she said, 'That's not necessarily true, you know.'

I said, 'How do you mean?'

And that's when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: 'Life isn't fair, Bill. We tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie, it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be!

Would you believe that for me right then it was like one of those comic books where the lightbulb goes on over Mandrake the Magician's head? 'It isn't!' I said, so loud I really startled her. 'You're right. It's not fair.' I was so happy if I'd known how to dance, I'd have started dancing. 'Isn't that great, isn't it just terrific?' I think along about here Edith must have thought I was well on my way toward being bonkers.

But it meant so much to me to have it said and out and free and flying—that was the discontent I endured the night my father stopped reading, I realized right then. That was the reconciliation I was trying to make and couldn't.

And that's what I think this book's about. All those Columbia experts can spiel all they want about the delicious satire; they're crazy. This book says 'life isn't fair' and I'm telling you, one and all, you better believe it. I got a fat spoiled son—he's not gonna nab Miss Rheingold. And he's always gonna be fat, even if he gets skinny he'll still be fat and he'll still be spoiled and life will never be enough to make him happy, and that's my fault maybe—make it all my fault, if you want—the point is, we're not created equal, for the rich they sing, life isn't fair. I got a cold wife; she's brilliant, she's stimulating, she's terrific; there's no love; that's okay too, just so long as we don't keep expecting everything to somehow even out for us before we die.

Look. (Grownups skip this paragraph.) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming up, torture you've already been prepared for, but there's worse. There's death coming up, and you better understand this: some of the wrong people die. Be ready for it. This isn't Curious George Uses the Potty. Nobody warned me and it was my own fault (you'll see what I mean in a little) and that was my mistake, so I'm not letting it happen to you. The wrong people die, some of them, and the reason is this: life is not fair. Forget all the garbage your parents put out. Remember Morgenstern. You'll be a lot happier.

Okay. Enough. Back to the next. Nightmare time.

***

THE NEXT NIGHT she dreamed of giving birth to their first child and it was a girl, a beautiful little girl, and Buttercup said, "I'm sorry it wasn't a boy; I know you need an heir," and Humperdinck said, "Beloved sweet, don't concern yourself with that; just look at the glorious child God has given us" and then he left and Buttercup held the child to her perfect breast and the child said, "Your milk is sour" and Buttercup said, "Oh, I'm sorry," and she shifted to the other breast and the child said, "No, this is sour too," and Buttercup said, "I don't know what to do" and the baby said, "You always know what to do, you always know exactly what to do, you always do exactly what's right for you, and the rest of the world can go hang," and Buttercup said, "You mean Westley" and the baby said, "Of course I mean Westley," and Buttercup explained patiently, "I thought he was dead, you see; I'd given my word to your father" and the baby said, "I'm dying now; there's no love in your milk, your milk has killed me" and then the child stiffened and cracked and turned in Buttercup's hands to nothing but dry dust and Buttercup screamed and screamed; even when she was awake again, with fifty-nine days to go till her marriage, she was still screaming.

The third nightmare came quickly the following evening, and again it was a baby—this time a son, a marvelous strong boy—and Humperdinck said, "Beloved, it's a boy" and Buttercup said, "I didn't fail you, thank heavens" and then he was gone and Buttercup called out, "May I see my son now" and all the doctors scurried around outside her royal room, but the boy was not brought in. "What seems to be the trouble?" Buttercup called out and the chief doctor said, "I don't quite understand, but he doesn't want to see you" and Buttercup said, "Tell him I am his mother and I am the Queen and I command his presence" and then he was there, just as handsome a baby boy as anyone could wish for. "Close it," Buttercup said, and the doctors closed the door. The baby stood in the corner as far from her bed as he could. "Come here, darling," Buttercup said. "Why? Are you going to kill me too?" "I'm your mother and I love you, now come here; I've never killed anybody." "You killed Westley, did you see his face in the Fire Swamp? When you walked away and left him? That's what I call killing." "When you're older, you'll understand things, now I'm not going to tell you again—come here." "Murderer," the baby shouted. "Murderer!" but by then she was out of bed and she had him in her arms and was saying, "Stop that, stop it this instant; I love you," and he said, "Your love is poison; it kills," and he died in her arms and she started to cry. Even when she was awake again, with fifty-eight days to go till her marriage, she was still crying.

The next night she simply refused to go to sleep. Instead, she walked and read and did needlework and drank cup after cup of steaming tea from the Indies. She felt sick with weariness, of course, but such was her fear of what she might dream that she preferred any waking discomfort to whatever sleep might have to offer, and at dawn her mother was pregnant—no, more than pregnant; her mother was having a baby—and as Buttercup stood there in the corner of the room, she watched herself being born and her father gasped at her beauty and so did her mother and the midwife was the first to show concern. The midwife was a sweet woman, known throughout the village for her love of babies, and she said, "Look—trouble—" and the father said, "What trouble? Where before did you ever see such beauty?" and the midwife said, "Don't you understand why she was given such beauty? It's because she has no heart, here, listen; the baby is alive but there is no beat" and she held Buttercup's chest against the father's ear and the father could only nod and say, "We must find a miracle man to place a heart inside" but the midwife said, "That would be wrong, I think; I've heard before of creatures like this, the heartless ones, and as they grow bigger they get more and more beautiful and behind them is nothing but broken bodies and shattered souls, and these without hearts are anguish bringers, and my advice would be, since you're both still young, to have another child, a different child, and be rid of this one now, but, of course, the final decision is up to you" and the father said to the mother, "Well?" and the mother said, "Since the midwife is the kindest person in the village, she must know a monster when she sees one; let's get to it," so Buttercup's father and Buttercup's mother put their hands to the baby's throat and the baby began to gasp. Even when Buttercup was awake again, at dawn, with fifty-seven days to go till her marriage, she could not stop gasping.

From then on, the nightmares became simply too frightening.

When there were fifty days to go, Buttercup knocked, one night, on the door to Prince Humperdinck's chambers. She entered when he bid her to. "I see trouble," he said. "You look very ill." And so she did. Beautiful, of course. Still that. But in no way well.

Buttercup did not see quite how to begin.

He ushered her into a chair. He got her water. She sipped at it, staring dead ahead. He put the glass to one side.

"At your convenience, Princess," he said.

"It comes to this," Buttercup began. "In the Fire Swamp, I made the worst mistake in all the world. I love Westley. I always have. It seems I always will. I did not know this when you came to me. Please believe what I am about to say: when you said that I must marry you or face death, I answered, 'Kill me.' I meant that. I mean this now too: if you say I must marry you in fifty days, I will be dead by morning."

The Prince was literally stunned.

After a long moment, he knelt by Buttercup's chair and, in his gentlest voice, started to speak: "I admit that when we first became engaged, there was to be no love involved. That was as much my choice as yours, though the notion may have come from you. But surely you must have noticed, in this last month of parties and festivities, a certain warming of my attitude."

"I have. You have been both sweet and noble."

"Thank you. Having said that, I hope you appreciate how difficult this next sentence is for me to say: I would die myself rather than cause you unhappiness by standing in the way of your marrying the man you love."

Buttercup wanted almost to weep with gratitude. She said: "I will bless you all my days for your kindness." Then she stood. "So it's settled. Our wedding is off."

He stood too. "Except for perhaps one thing."

"That being?"

"Have you considered the possibility that he might not now want any longer to marry you?"

Until that moment, she had not.

"You were, I hate to remind you, not altogether gentle with his emotions in the Fire Swamp. Forgive me for saying that, beloved, but you did leave him in the lurch, in a manner of speaking."

Buttercup sat down hard, her turn now to be stunned.

Humperdinck knelt again beside her. "This Westley of yours, this sailor boy; he has pride?"

Buttercup managed to whisper, "More than any man alive, I sometimes think."

"Well consider, then, dearest. Here he is, off sailing somewhere with the Dread Pirate Roberts; he has had a month to survive the emotional scars you dealt him. What if he wants now to remain single? Or, worse, what if he has found another?"

Buttercup was now even beyond whispering.

"I think, sweetest child, that we should strike a bargain, you and I: if Westley wants to marry you still, bless you both. If, for reasons unpleasant to mention, his pride will not let him, then you will marry me, as planned, and be the Queen of Florin."

"He couldn't be married. I'm sure. Not my Westley." She looked at the Prince. "But how can I find out?"

"What about this: you write him a letter, telling him everything. We'll make four copies. I'll take my four fastest ships and order them off in all directions. The Dread Pirate Roberts is not often more than a month's sail from Florin. Whichever of my ships finds him will run the white flag of truce, deliver your letter, and Westley can decide. If 'no,' he can speak that message to my captain. If 'yes,' my captain will sail him here to you, and I will have to content myself somehow with a lesser bride."

"I think—I'm not sure—but I definitely think, that this is the most generous decision I have yet heard."

"Do me this favor then in return: until we know Westley's intentions, one way or another, let us continue as we have, so the festivities will not be halted. And if I seem too fond of you, remember that I cannot help myself."

"Agreed," Buttercup said, going to the door, but not before she kissed his cheek.

He followed her. "Off with you now and write your letter," and he returned the kiss, smiling with his eyes at her until the corridor curved her from his sight. There was no doubt whatsoever in his mind that he was going to seem too fond of her in the days ahead. Because when she died of murder on their wedding night, it was crucial that all Florin realize the depth of his love, the epochal size of his loss, since then no one would dare hesitate to follow him in the revenge war he was to launch against Guilder.

At first, when he hired the Sicilian, he was convinced it was best that someone else do her in, all the while making it appear the work of soldiers from Guilder. And when the man in black had somehow materialized to spoil his plans, the Prince came close to going insane with rage. But now his basically optimistic nature had reasserted itself: everything always worked out for the best. The people were infatuated with Buttercup now as they had never been before her kidnapping. And when he announced from his castle balcony that she had been murdered—he already saw the scene in his mind: he would arrive just too late to save her from strangling but soon enough to see the Guilderian soldiers leaping from the window of his bedroom to the soft ground below—when he made that speech to the masses on the five hundredth anniversary of his country, well, there wouldn't be a dry eye in the Square. And although he was just the least bit perturbed, since he had never actually killed a woman before with his bare hands, there was a first time for everything. Besides, if you wanted something done right, you did it yourself.

THAT NIGHT, THEY began to torture Westley. Count Rugen did the actual pain inducing; the Prince simply sat by, asking questions out loud, inwardly admiring the Count's skill.

The Count really cared about pain. The whys behind the screams interested him fully as much as the anguish itself. And whereas the Prince spent his life in physically following the hunt, Count Rugen read and studied anything he could get his hands on dealing with the subject of Distress.

"All right now," the Prince said to Westley, who lay in the great fifth-level cage; "before we begin, I want you to answer me this: have you any complaints about your treatment thus far?"

"None whatever," Westley replied, and in truth he had none. Oh, he might have preferred being unchained a bit now and then, but if you were to be a captive, you couldn't ask for more than he had been given. The albino's medical ministrations had been precise, and his shoulder was fine again; the food the albino brought had always been hot and nourishing, the wine and brandy wonderfully warming against the dankness of the underground cage.

"You feel fit, then?" the Prince went on.

"I assume my legs are a little stiff from being chained, but other than that, yes."

"Good. Then I promise you this as God himself is my witness: answer the next question and I will set you free this night. But you must answer it honestly, fully, withholding nothing. If you lie, I will know. And then I'll loose the Count on you."

"I have nothing to hide," Westley said. "Ask away."

"Who hired you to kidnap the Princess? It was someone from Guilder. We found fabric indicating as much on the Princess's horse. Tell me that man's name and you are free. Speak."

"No one hired me," Westley said. "I was working strictly freelance. And I didn't kidnap her; I saved her from others who were doing that very thing."

"You seem a reasonable fellow, and my Princess claims to have known you many years, so I will give you, on her account, one last and final chance: the name of the man in Guilder who hired you. Tell me or face torture."

"No one hired me, I swear."

The Count set fire to Westley's hands. Nothing permanent or disabling; he just dipped Westley's hands in oil and brought a candle close enough to set things bubbling. When Westley had screamed "NO ONE—NO ONE—NO ONE—ON MY LIFE!" a sufficient number of times, the Count dipped Westley's hands in water, and he and the Prince left via the underground entrance, leaving the medication to the albino, who was always nearby during the torturing times, but never visible enough to be distracting.

"I feel quite invigorated," the Count said as he and the Prince began to ascend the underground staircase. "It's a perfect question. He was telling the truth, clearly; we both know that."

The Prince nodded. The Count was privy to all his innermost plans for the revenge war.

"I'm fascinated to see what happens," the Count went on. "Which pain will be least endurable? The physical, or the mental anguish of having freedom offered if the truth is told, then telling it and being thought a liar."

"I think the physical," said the Prince.

"I think you're wrong," said the Count.

Actually, they were both wrong; Westley suffered not at all throughout. His screaming was totally a performance to please them; he had been practicing his defenses for a month now, and he was more than ready. The minute the Count brought the candle close, Westley raised his eyes to the ceiling, dropped his eyelids over them, and in a state of deep and steady concentration, he took his brain away. Buttercup was what he thought of. Her autumn hair, her perfect skin, and he brought her very close beside him, and had her whisper in his ear throughout the burning: "I love you. I love you. I only left you in the Fire Swamp to test your love for me. Is it as great as mine for you? Can two such loves exist on one planet at one time? Is there that much room, beloved Westley?..."

The albino bandaged his fingers.

Westley lay still.

For the first time, the albino started things. Whispered: "You better tell them."

From Westley, a shrug.

Whispered: "They never stop. Not once they start. Tell them what they want to know and have done with it."

Shrug.

Whispered: "The Machine is nearly ready. They are testing it on animals now."

Shrug.

Whispered: "It's for your own good I tell you these things."

"My own good? What good? They're going to kill me anyway."

From the albino: nod.

THE PRINCE FOUND Buttercup waiting unhappily outside his chamber doors.

"It's my letter," she began. "I cannot make it right."

"Come in, come in," the Prince said gently. "Maybe we can help you." She sat down in the same chair as before. "All right, I'll close my eyes and listen; read to me."

"'Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only, my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.'" She looked at Humperdinck. "Well? Do you think I'm throwing myself at him?"

"It does seem a bit forward," the Prince admitted. "It doesn't leave him a great deal of room to maneuver."

"Will you help me to improve it, please?"

"I'll do what I can, sweet lady, but first it might help if I knew just a bit about him. Is he really so wonderful, this Westley of yours?"

"Not so much wonderful as perfect," she replied. "Kind of flawless. More or less magnificent. Without blemish. Rather on the ideal side." She looked at the Prince. "Am I being helpful?"

"I think emotions are clouding your objectivity just a bit. Do you actually think that there is nothing the fellow can't do?"

Buttercup thought for a while. "It's not so much that there's nothing he can't do; it's more that he can do it all better than anybody else can do it."

The Prince chuckled and smiled. "In other words, for example, you mean if he wanted to hunt, he could outhunt, again for example, someone such as myself."

"Oh, I would think if he wanted to, he could, quite easily, but he happens not to like hunting, at least to my knowledge, though maybe he does; I don't know. I never knew he was so interested in mountain climbing but he scaled the Cliffs of Insanity under most adverse conditions, and everyone agrees that that is not the easiest thing in the world to accomplish."

"Well, why don't we just begin our letter with 'Divine Westley,' and appeal to his sense of modesty," the Prince suggested.

Buttercup began to write, stopped. "Does 'divine' begin de or di?"

"Di, I believe, amazing creature," the Prince replied, smiling gently as Buttercup commenced the letter. They composed it in four hours, and many many times she said, "I could never get through this without you" and the Prince was always most modest, asking little helpful personal questions about Westley as often as was possible without drawing attention to it, and in this way, well before dawn, she told him, smiling as she remembered, of Westley's early fears of Spinning Ticks.

And that night, in the fifth-level cage, the Prince asked, as he was to always ask, "Tell me the name of the man in Guilder who hired you to kidnap the Princess and I promise you immediate freedom" and Westley replied, as he was always to reply, "No one, no one; I was alone" and the Count, who had spent the day getting the Spinners ready, placed them carefully on Westley's skin and Westley closed his eyes and begged and pleaded and after an hour or so the Prince and Count left, the albino remaining behind with the chore of burning the Spinners and then pulling them free from Westley, lest they accidentally poison him, and on the way up the underground stairs to ground level the Prince said, just for conversation's sake, "Much better, don't you think?"

The Count, oddly, said nothing.

Which was vaguely irritating to Humperdinck because, to tell the absolute truth, torture was never all that high on his scale of passions, and he would just as soon have disposed of Westley right then.

If only Buttercup would admit that he, Humperdinck, was the better man.

But she would not! She simply would not! All she ever talked about was Westley. All she ever asked about was news of Westley. Days went by, weeks went by, party after party went by, and all Florin was moved by the spectacle of their great hunting Prince at last so clearly and wonderfully in love, but when they were alone, all she ever said was, "I wonder where could Westley be? What could be taking him so long? How can I live until he comes?"

Maddening. So each night, the Count's discomforts, which made Westley writhe and twist, were really sort of all right. The Prince would manage an hour or so of spectating before he and the Count would leave, the Count still oddly silent. And down below, tending the wounds, the albino would whisper: "Tell them. Please. They will only add to your suffering."

Westley could barely suppress his smile.

He had felt no pain, not once, none. He had closed his eyes and taken his brain away. That was the secret. If you could take your brain away from the present and send it to where it could contemplate skin like wintry cream; well, let them enjoy themselves.

His revenge time would come.

Westley was living now most of all for Buttercup. But there was no denying that there was one more thing he wanted too.

His time...

PRINCE HUMPERDINCK SIMPLY had no time. There seemed to be not one decision in all of Florin that one way or another didn't eventually come heavily to rest upon his shoulders. Not only was he getting married, his country was having its five hundredth anniversary. Not only was he noodling around in his mind the best ways to get a war going, he also had to constantly have affection shining from his eyes. Every detail had to be met, and met correctly.

His father was just no help at all, refusing either to expire or stop mumbling (you thought his father was dead but that was in the fake-out, don't forget—Morgenstern was just edging into the nightmare sequence, so don't be confused) and start making sense. Queen Bella simply hovered around him, translating here and there, and it was with a shock that Prince Humperdinck realized, just twelve days before his wedding day, that he had neglected to set in motion the crucial Guilder section of his plan, so he called Yellin to the castle late one night.

Yellin was Chief of All Enforcement in Florin City, a job he had inherited from his father. (The albino keeper at the Zoo was Yellin's first cousin, and together they formed the only pair of nonnobles the Prince could come close to trusting.)

"Your Highness," Yellin said. He was small, but crafty, with darting eyes and slippery hands.

Prince Humperdinck came out from behind his desk. He moved close to Yellin and looked carefully around before saying, softly, "I have heard, from unimpeachable sources, that many men of Guilder have, of late, begun to infiltrate our Thieves Quarter. They are disguised as Florinese, and I am worried."

"I have heard nothing of such a thing," Yellin said.

"A prince has spies everywhere."

"I understand," said Yellin. "And you think, since the evidence points that they tried to kidnap your fiancée once, such a thing might happen again?"

"It's a possibility."

"I'll close off the Thieves Quarter then," Yellin said. "No one will enter and no one will leave."

"Not good enough," said the Prince. "I want the Thieves Quarter emptied and every villain jailed until I am safely on my honeymoon." Yellin did not nod quickly enough, so the Prince said, "State your problem."

"My men are not always too happy at the thought of entering the Thieves Quarter. Many of the thieves resist change."

"Root them out. Form a brute squad. But get it done."

"It takes at least a week to get a decent brute squad going," Yellin said. "But that is time enough." He bowed, and started to leave.

And that was when the scream began.

Yellin had heard many things in his life, but nothing quite so eerie as this: he was a brave man, but this sound frightened him. It was not human, but he could not guess the throat of the beast it came from. (It was actually a wild dog, on the first level of the Zoo, but no wild dog had ever shrieked like that before. But then, no wild dog had ever been put in the Machine.)

The sound grew in anguish, and it filled the night sky as it spread across the castle grounds, over the walls, even into the Great Square beyond.

It would not stop. It simply hung now below the sky, an audible reminder of the existence of agony. In the Great Square, half a dozen children screamed back at the night, trying to blot out the sound. Some wept, some only ran for home.

Then it began to lessen in volume. Now it was hard to hear in the Great Square, now it was gone. Now it was hard to hear on the castle walls, now it was gone from the castle walls. It shrunk across the grounds toward the first level of the Zoo of Death, where Count Rugen sat fiddling with some knobs. The wild dog died. Count Rugen rose, and it was all he could do to bury his own shriek of triumph.

He left the Zoo and ran toward Prince Humperdinck's chambers. Yellin was just going when the Count got there. The Prince was seated now, behind his desk. When Yellin was gone and they were alone, the Count bowed to his majesty: "The Machine," he said at last, "works."

PRINCE HUMPERDINCK TOOK a while before answering. It was a ticklish situation, granted he was the boss, the Count merely an underling, still, no one in all Florin had Rugen's skills. As an inventor, he had, obviously, at last, rid the Machine of all defects. As an architect, he had been crucial in the safety factors involved in the Zoo of Death, and it had undeniably been Rugen who had arranged for the only survivable entrance being the underground fifth-level one. He was also supportive to the Prince in all endeavors of hunting and battle, and you didn't give a follower like that a quick "Get away, boy, you bother me." So the Prince indeed took a while.

"Look, Ty," he said finally. "I'm just thrilled you smoothed all the bugs out of the Machine; I never for a minute doubted you'd get it right eventually. And I'm really anxious as can be to see it working. But how can I put this? I can't keep my head above water one minute to the next: it's not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what's-her-name, I've got to decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone's still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I've got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I've got to get the war going once that's all happened, and all this is stuff I've got to do myself. Here's what it all comes down to: I'm just swamped, Ty. So how about if you go to work on Westley and tell me how it goes, and when I get the time, I'll come watch and I'm sure it'll be just wonderful, but for now, what I'd like is a little breathing room, no hard feelings?"

Count Rugen smiled. "None." And there weren't any. He always felt better when he could dole out pain alone. You could concentrate much more deeply when you were alone with agony.

"I knew you'd understand, Ty."

There was a knock on the door and Buttercup stuck her head in. "Any news?" she said.

The Prince smiled at her and sadly shook his head. "Honey, I promised to tell you the second I hear a thing."

"It's only twelve days, though."

"Plenty of time, dulcet darling, now don't worry yourself."

"I'll leave you," Buttercup said.

"I was going too," the Count said. "May I walk you to your quarters?"

Buttercup nodded, and down the corridors they wandered till they reached her suite. "Good night," Buttercup said quickly; ever since that day he had first come to her father's farm, she had always been afraid whenever the Count came near.

"I'm sure he'll come," the Count said; he was privy to all the Prince's plans, and Buttercup was well aware of this. "I don't know your fellow well, but he impressed me greatly. Any man who can find his way through the Fire Swamp can find his way to Florin Castle before your wedding day."

Buttercup nodded.

"He seemed so strong, so remarkably powerful," the Count went on, his voice warm and lulling. "I only wondered if he possessed true sensitivity, as some men of great might, as you know, do not. For example, I wonder: is he capable of tears?"

"Westley would never cry," Buttercup answered, opening her chamber door. "Except for the death of a loved one." And with that she closed the Count away and, alone, went to her bed and knelt. Westley, she thought then. Do come please; I have begged you in my thoughts now these many weeks and still no word. Back when we were on the farm, I thought I loved you, but that was not love. When I saw your face behind the mask on the ravine floor, I thought I loved you, but that was again nothing more than deep infatuation. Beloved: I think I love you now, and I pray you only give me the chance to spend my life in constant proving. I could spend my life in the Fire Swamp and sing from morn till night if you were by me. I could spend eternity sinking down through Snow Sand if my hand held your hand. My preference would be to last eternity with you beside me on a cloud, but hell would also be a lark if Westley was with me....

She went on that way, silent hour after silent hour; she had done nothing else for thirty-eight evenings now, and each time, her ardor deepened, her thoughts became more pure. Westley. Westley. Flying across the seven seas to claim her.

For his part, and quite without knowing, Westley was spending his evenings in much the same fashion. After the torture was done, when the albino had finished tending his slashes or burns or breaks, when he was alone in the giant cage, he sent his brain to Buttercup, and there it dwelled.

He understood her so well. In his mind, he realized that moment he left her on the farm when she swore love, certainly she meant it, but she was barely eighteen. What did she know of the depth of the heart? Then again, when he had removed his black mask and she had tumbled to him, surprise had been operating, stunned astonishment as much as emotion. But just as he knew that the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

So when the Count appeared with the Machine, Westley was not particularly perturbed. As a matter of fact, he had no idea what the Count was bringing with him into the giant cage. As a matter of absolute fact, the Count was bringing nothing; it was the albino who was doing the actual work, making trip after trip with thing after thing.

That was what it really looked like to Westley: things. Little soft rimmed cups of various sizes and a wheel, most likely, and another object that could turn out to be either a lever or a stick; it was hard to tell.

"A good good evening to you," the Count began.

He had never, to Westley's memory, shown such excitement. Westley made a very weak nod in return. Actually, he felt about as well as ever, but it didn't do to let that kind of news get around.

"Feeling a bit under the weather?" the Count asked.

Westley made another feeble nod.

The albino scurried in and out, bringing more things: wirelike extensions, stringy and endless.

"That will be all," the Count said finally.

Nod.

Gone.

"This is the Machine," the Count said when they were alone. "I've spent eleven years constructing it. As you can tell, I'm rather excited and proud."

Westley managed an affirmative blink.

"I'll be putting it together for a while." And with that, he got busy.

Westley watched the construction with a good deal of interest and, logically enough, curiosity.

"You heard that scream a bit earlier on this evening?"

Another affirmative blink.

"That was a wild dog. This machine caused the sound." It was a very complex job the Count was doing, but the six fingers on his right hand never for a moment seemed in doubt as to just what to do. "I'm very interested in pain," the Count said, "as I'm sure you've gathered these past months. In an intellectual way, actually. I've written, of course, for the more learned journals on the subject. Articles mostly. At the present I'm engaged in writing a book. My book. The book, I hope. The definitive work on pain, at least as we know it now."

Westley found the whole thing fascinating. He made a little groan.

"I think pain is the most underrated emotion available to us," the Count said. "The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain. Pain has been with us always, and it always irritates me when people say 'as important as life and death' because the proper phrase, to my mind, should be, 'as important as pain and death.'" The Count fell silent for a time then, as he began and completed a series of complex adjustments. "One of my theories," he said somewhat later, "is that pain involves anticipation. Nothing original, I admit, but I'm going to demonstrate to you what I mean: I will not, underline not, use the Machine on you this evening. I could. It's ready and tested. But instead I will simply erect it and leave it beside you, for you to stare at the next twenty-four hours, wondering just what it is and how it works and can it really be as dreadful as all that." He tightened some things here, loosened some more over there, tugged and patted and shaped.

The Machine looked so silly Westley was tempted to giggle. Instead, he groaned again.

"I'll leave you to your imagination, then," the Count said, and he looked at Westley. "But I want you to know one thing before tomorrow night happens to you, and I mean it: you are the strongest, the most brilliant and brave, the most altogether worthy creature it has ever been my privilege to meet, and I feel almost sad that, for the purposes of my book and future pain scholars, I must destroy you."

"Thank ... you..." Westley breathed softly.

The Count went to the cage door and said over his shoulder, "And you can stop all your performing about how weak and beaten you are; you haven't fooled me for a month. You're practically as strong now as on the day you entered the Fire Swamp. I know your secret, if that's any consolation to you."

"...secret?" Hushed, strained.

"You've been taking your brain away," the Count cried. "You haven't felt the least discomfort in all these months. You raise your eyes and drop your eyelids and then you're off, probably with—I don't know—her, most likely. Good night now. Try and sleep. I doubt you'll be able to. Anticipation, remember?" With a wave, he mounted the underground stairs.

Westley could feel the sudden pressure of his heart.

Soon the albino came, knelt by Westley's ear. Whispered: "I've been watching you all these days. You deserve better than what's coming. I'm needed. No one else feeds the beasts as I do. I'm safe. They won't hurt me. I'll kill you if you'd like. That would foil them. I've got some good poison. I beg you. I've seen the Machine. I was there when the wild dog screamed. Please let me kill you. You'll thank me, I swear."

"I must live."

Whispered: "But—"

Interruption: "They will not reach me. I am all right. I am fine. I am alive, and I will stay that way." He said the words loud, and he said them with passion. But for the first time in a long time, there was terror....

"WELL, COULD YOU SLEEP?" the Count asked the next night upon his arrival in the cage.

"Quite honestly, no," Westley replied in his normal voice.

"I'm glad you're being honest with me; I'll be honest with you; no more charades between us," the Count said, putting down a number of notebooks and quill pens and ink bottles. "I must carefully track your reactions," he explained.

"In the name of science?"

The Count nodded. "If my experiments are valid, my name will last beyond my body. It's immortality I'm after, to be quite honest." He adjusted a few knobs on the Machine. "I suppose you're naturally curious as to how this works."

"I have spent the night pondering and I know no more than when I started. It appears to be a great conglomeration of soft rimmed cups of infinitely varied sizes, together with a wheel and a dial and a lever, and what it does is beyond me."

"Also glue," added the Count, pointing to a small tub of thick stuff. "To keep the cups attached." And with that, he set to work, taking cup after cup, touching the soft rims with glue, and setting them against Westley's skin. "Eventually I'll have to put one on your tongue too," the Count said, "but I'll save that for last in case you have any questions."

"This certainly isn't the easiest thing to get set up, is it?"

"I'll be able to fix that in later models," the Count said; "at least those are my present plans," and he kept right on putting cup after cup on Westley's skin until every inch of exposed surface was covered. "So much for the outside," the Count said then. "This next is a bit more delicate; try not to move."

"I'm chained hand, head and foot," Westley said. "How much movement do you think I'm capable of?"

"Are you really as brave as you sound, or are you a little frightened? The truth, please. This is for posterity, remember."

"I'm a little frightened," Westley replied.

The Count jotted that down, along with the time. Then he got down to the fine work, and soon there were tiny tiny soft rimmed cups on the insides of Westley's nostrils, against his eardrums, under his eyelids, above and below his tongue, and before the Count arose, Westley was covered inside and out with the things. "Now all I do," the Count said very loudly, hoping Westley could hear, "is get the wheel going to its fastest spin so that I have more than enough power to operate. And the dial can be set from one to twenty and, this being the first time, I will set it at the lowest setting, which is one. And then all I need do is push the lever forward, and we should, if I haven't gummed it up, be in full operation."

But Westley, as the lever moved, took his brain away, and when the Machine began, Westley was stroking her autumn-colored hair and touching her skin of wintry cream and—and—and then his world exploded—because the cups, the cups were everywhere, and before, they had punished his body but left his brain, only not the Machine; the Machine reached everywhere—his eyes were not his to control and his ears could not hear her gentle loving whisper and his brain slid away, slid far from love into the deep fault of despair, hit hard, fell again, down through the house of agony into the county of pain. Inside and out, Westley's world was ripping apart and he could do nothing but crack along with it.

The Count turned off the Machine then, and as he picked up his notebooks he said, "As you no doubt know, the concept of the suction pump is centuries old—well, basically, that's all this is, except instead of water, I'm sucking life; I've just sucked away one year of your life. Later I'll set the dial higher, certainly to two or three, perhaps even to five. Theoretically, five should be five times more severe than what you've just endured, so please be specific in your answers. Tell me now, honestly: how do you feel?"

In humiliation, and suffering, and frustration, and anger, and anguish so great it was dizzying, Westley cried like a baby.

"Interesting," said the Count, and carefully noted it down.

IT TOOK YELLIN a week to get his enforcers together in sufficient number, together with an adequate brute squad. And so, five days before the wedding, he stood at the head of his company awaiting the speech of the Prince. This was in the castle courtyard, and when the Prince appeared, the Count was, as usual, with him, although, not as usual, the Count seemed preoccupied. Which, of course, he was, though Yellin had no way of knowing that. The Count had sucked ten years from Westley this past week, and, with the life of sixty-five that was average for a Florinese male, the victim had approximately thirty years remaining, assuming he was about twenty-five when they started experimenting. But how best to go about dividing that? The Count was simply in a quandary. So many possibilities, but which would prove, scientifically, most interesting? The Count sighed; life was never easy.

"You are here," the Prince began, "because there may be another plot against my beloved. I charge each and every one of you with being her personal protector. I want the Thieves Quarter empty and all the inhabitants jailed twenty-four hours before my wedding. Only then will I rest easy. Gentlemen, I beg you: think of this mission as being an affair of the heart, and I know you will not fail." With that he pivoted and, followed by the Count, hurried from the courtyard, leaving Yellin in command.

The conquest of the Thieves Quarter began immediately. Yellin worked long and hard at it each day, but the Thieves Quarter was a mile square, so there was much to do. Most of the criminals had been through unjust and illegal roundups before, so they offered little resistance. They knew the jails were not celled enough for all of them, so if it meant a few days' incarceration, what did it matter?

There was, however, a second group of criminals, those who realized that capture meant, for various past performances, death, and these, without exception, resisted. In general, Yellin, through adroit handling of the Brute Squad, was able to bring these bad fellows, eventually, under control.

Still, thirty-six hours before the sunset wedding, there were half a dozen holdout left in the Thieves Quarter. Yellin arose at dawn and, tired and confused—not one of the captured criminals seemed to come from Guilder—he gathered the best of the Brute Squad and led them into the Thieves Quarter for what simply had to be the final foray.

Yellin went immediately to Falkbridge's Alehouse, first sending all save two Brutes off on various tasks, keeping a noisy one and a quiet one for his own needs. He knocked on Falkbridge's door and waited. Falkbridge was by far the most powerful man in the Thieves Quarter. He seemed almost to own half of it and there wasn't a crime of any dimension he wasn't behind. He always avoided arrest, and everyone except Yellin thought Falkbridge must be bribing somebody. Yellin knew he was bribing somebody, since every month, rain or shine, Falkbridge came to Yellin's house and gave him a satchel full of money.

"Who?" Falkbridge called from inside the alehouse.

"The Chief of All Enforcement in Florin City, accompanied by Brutes," Yellin replied. Completeness was one of his virtues.

"Oh." Falkbridge opened the door. For a power, he was very unimposing, short and chubby. "Come in."

Yellin entered, leaving the two Brutes in the doorway. "Get ready and be quick," Yellin said.

"Hey, Yellin, it's me," Falkbridge said softly.

"I know, I know," Yellin said softly right back. "But please, do me a favor, get ready."

"Pretend I did. I'll stay in the alehouse, I promise. I got enough food; no one will ever know."

"The Prince is without mercy," Yellin said. "If I let you stay and I'm found out, that's it for me."

"I been paying you twenty years to stay out of jail. You're a rich man just so I don't have to go to jail. Where's the logic of me paying you and no advantages?"

"I'll make it up to you. I'll get you the best cell in Florin City. Don't you trust me?"

"How can I trust a man I pay twenty years to stay out of jail when all of a sudden, the minute a little extra pressure's on, he says 'go to jail'? I'm not going."

"You!" Yellin signaled to the noisy one.

The Brute started running forward.

"Put this man in the wagon immediately," Yellin said.

Falkbridge was starting to explain when the noisy one clubbed him across the neck.

"Not so hard!" Yellin cried.

The noisy one picked up Falkbridge, tried dusting his clothes.

"Is he alive?" Yellin asked.

"See, I didn't know you wanted him breathing in the wagon; I thought you only wanted him in the wagon breathing or not, so—"

"Enough," Yellin interrupted and, upset, he hurried out of the alehouse while the noisy one brought Falkbridge. "Is that everyone then?" Yellin asked as various Brutes were visible leaving the Thieves Quarter pulling various wagons.

"I think there's still the fencer with the brandy," the noisy one began. "See, they tried getting him out yesterday but—"

"I can't be bothered with a drunk; I'm an important man, get him out of here and do it now, both of you; take the wagon with you, and be quick! This quarter must be locked and deserted by sundown or the Prince will be mad at me, and I don't like it much when the Prince is mad at me."

"We're going, we're going," the noisy one replied, and he hurried off, letting the quiet one bring the wagon with Falkbridge inside. "They tried getting this fencer yesterday, some of the standard enforcers, but it seems he has certain sword skills that made them wary, but I think I have a trick that will work." The quiet one hurried along behind, dragging the wagon. They rounded a corner, and from around another corner just up ahead, a kind of drunken mumbling was starting to get louder.

"I'm getting very bored, Vizzini" came from out of sight. "Three months is a long time to wait, especially for a passionate Spaniard." Much louder now: "And I am very passionate, Vizzini, and you are nothing but a tardy Sicilian. So if you're not here in ninety more days, I'm done with you. You hear? Done!" Much softer now: "I didn't mean that, Vizzini, I just love my filthy stoop, take your time...."

The noisy Brute slowed. "That kind of talk goes on all day; ignore it, and keep the wagon out of sight." The quiet one pushed the wagon almost to the corner and stopped it. "Stay with the wagon," the noisy one added, and then whispered, "Here comes my trick." With that he walked alone around the corner and stared ahead at the skinny fellow sitting clutching the brandy bottle on the stoop. "Ho there, friend," the noisy one said.

"I'm not moving: keep your 'ho there,'" said the brandy drinker.

"Hear me through, please: I have been sent by Prince Humperdinck himself, who is in need of entertainment. Tomorrow is our country's five hundredth anniversary and the dozen greatest tumblers and fencers and entertainers are at this very moment competing. The finest pair will compete personally tomorrow for the new bride and groom. Now, as to why I'm here: yesterday, some of my friends tried rousting you and they said, later, that you resisted with some splendid swordwork. So, if you would like, I, at great personal sacrifice, will rush you to the fencing contest, where, if you are as good as I am told, you might have yet the honor of entertaining the Royal Couple tomorrow. Do you think you could win such a competition?"

"Breezing."

"Then hurry while there's still time to enter."

The Spaniard managed to stand. He unsheathed his sword and flashed it a few times across the morning.

The noisy one took a few quick steps backward and said, "No time to waste; come along now."

Then the drunk started yelling: "I'm—waiting—for—Vizzini—"

"Meanie."

"I'm—not—mean, I'm—just—following—the—rule—"

"Cruel."

"Not—cruel, not—mean; can't you understand I'm..." and here his voice trailed off for a moment as he squinted. Then, quietly, he said, "Fezzik?"

From behind the noisy one, the quiet one said, "Who says-ik?"

Inigo took a step from his stoop, trying desperately to make his eyes focus through the brandy. "'Says-ik'? Is that a joke you made?"

The quiet one said, "Played."

Inigo gave a cry and started staggering forward: "Fezzik, it's you!"

"TRUE!" And he reached out, grabbed Inigo just before he stumbled, brought him back to an upright position.

"Hold him just like that," the noisy Brute said, and he moved in quickly, right arm raised, as he had done to Falkbridge.

Fezzik dumped the noisy Brute into the wagon beside Falkbridge, covered them both with a soiled blanket, then hurried back to Inigo, whom he had left leaning propped against a building.

"It's just so good to see you," Fezzik said then.

"Oh, it is ... it ... is, but..." Inigo's voice was winding steadily down now. "I'm too weak for surprises" were the last sounds he got out before he fainted from fatigue and brandy and no food and bad sleep and lots of other things, none of them nutritious.

Fezzik hoisted him up with one arm, took the wagon in the other, and hurried back to Falkbridge's house. He carried Inigo inside, placed him upstairs on Falkbridge's feather bed, then hurried away to the entrance of the Thieves Quarter, dragging the wagon behind him. He made very sure that the dirty blanket covered both the victims, and outside the entrance the Brute Squad held a boot count of those they had removed. The total came out right, and, by eleven in the morning, the great walled Thieves Quarter was officially empty and padlocked.

Released from active duty, Fezzik followed the wall around to a quiet place and waited. He was alone. Walls were never any problem for him, not so long as his arms worked, and he quickly scaled this one and hurried back through the quiet streets to Falkbridge's house. He made some tea, carried it upstairs, force-fed Inigo. Within a few moments, Inigo was blinking under his own power.

"It's just so good to see you," Fezzik said then.

"Oh, it is, it is," Inigo agreed, "and I'm sorry for fainting, but I have done nothing for ninety days but wait for Vizzini and drink brandy, and a surprise like seeing you, well, that was just too much for me on an empty stomach. But I'm fine now."

"Good," Fezzik said. "Vizzini is dead."

"He is, eh? Dead, you say ... Vizz..." and then he fainted again.

Fezzik began berating himself. "Oh, you stupid, if there's a right way and a wrong way, trust you to find the dumb way; fool, fool, back to the beginning was the rule." Fezzik really felt idiotic then because, after months of forgetting, now that he didn't need to remember anymore, he remembered. He hurried downstairs and made some tea and brought some crackers and honey and fed Inigo again.

When Inigo blinked, Fezzik said, "Rest."

"Thank you, my friend; no more fainting." And he closed his eyes and slept for an hour.

Fezzik busied himself in Falkbridge's kitchen. He really didn't know how to prepare a proper meal, but he could heat and he could cool and he could sniff the good meat from the rotted, so it wasn't too great a task to finally end up with something that once looked like roast beef and another thing that could have been a potato.

The unexpected smell of hot food brought Inigo around, and he lay in bed, eating every bite Fezzik fed him. "I never realized I was in such terrible condition," Inigo said, chewing away.

"Shhh, you'll be fine now," Fezzik said, cutting another piece of meat, putting it into Inigo's mouth.

Inigo chewed it carefully down. "First you appearing so suddenly and then, on top of that, the business of Vizzini. It was too much for me."

"It would have been too much for anybody; just rest." Fezzik began to cut another piece of meat.

"I feel such a baby, so helpless," Inigo said, taking the next bite, chewing away.

"You'll be as strong as ever by sundown," Fezzik promised, getting the next piece of meat ready. "The six-fingered man is named Count Rugen and he's here right now in Florin City."

"Interesting," Inigo managed this time before he fainted again.

Fezzik stood over the still figure. "Well it is so good to see you," he said, "and it's been such a long time and I've just got so much news."

Inigo only lay there.

Fezzik hurried to Falkbridge's tub and plugged it up and after a lot of work he got it filled with steaming water and then he dunked Inigo in, holding him down with one hand, holding Inigo's mouth shut with the other, and when the brandy began to sweat from the Spaniard's body, Fezzik emptied the tub and filled it again, with icy water this time, and back he plunged Inigo, and when that water began to warm a bit back he filled the tub with steaming stuff and back went Inigo and now the brandy was really oozing from his pores and that was how it went, hour after hour, hot to icy cold to steaming hot and then some tea and then some toast and then some steaming hot again and more icy cold and then a nap and then more toast and less tea but the longest steamer yet and this time there wasn't much brandy left inside and one final icy cold and then a two-hour sleep until by mid-afternoon, they sat downstairs in Falkbridge's kitchen, and now, at last, for the first time in ninety days, Inigo's eyes were almost bright. His hands did shake, but not all that noticeably, and perhaps the Inigo of before the brandy would have bested this fellow now in sixty minutes of solid fencing. But not too many other masters in the world would have survived for five.

"Tell me briefly now: while I've been here with the brandy, you have been where?"

"Well, I spent some time in a fishing village and then I wandered a bit, and then a few weeks ago I found myself in Guilder and the talk there was of the coming wedding and perhaps a coming war and I remembered Buttercup when I carried her up the Cliffs of Insanity; she was so pretty and soft and I had never been so near perfume before that I thought it might be nice to see her wedding celebrations, so I came here, but my money was gone, and then they were forming a brute squad and needed giants and I went to apply and they beat me with clubs to see if I was strong enough and when the clubs broke they decided I was. I've been a Brute First Class all this past week; it's very good pay."

Inigo nodded. "All right, again, and this time please be brief, from the beginning: the man in black. Did he get by you?"

"Yes. Fairly too. Strength against strength. I was too slow and out of practice."

"Then it was he that killed Vizzini?"

"That is my belief."

"Did he use his sword or his strength?"

Fezzik tried to remember. "There weren't any sword wounds and Vizzini didn't seem broken. There were just these two goblets and Vizzini dead. Poison is my guess."

"Why would Vizzini take poison?"

Fezzik hadn't the least idea.

"But he was definitely dead?"

Fezzik was positive.

Inigo began to pace the kitchen, his movements quick and sharp, the way his movements were before. "All right, Vizzini is dead, enough of that. Tell me briefly where the six-fingered Rugen is so I may kill him."

"That may not be so easy, Inigo, because the Count is with the Prince, and the Prince is in his castle, and he is pledged not to leave it till after his wedding, for he fears another sneak attack from Guilder, and all the entrances but the main one are sealed for safety and the main doors are guarded by twenty men."

"Hmmm," Inigo said, pacing faster now. "If you fought five and I fenced five, that would mean ten gone, which would be bad because that would also mean ten left and they would kill us. But" and now he picked up his pace even more, "if you should take six and I took eight, that would mean fourteen beaten, which would not be as bad but still bad enough, since the six remaining would kill us." And now he whirled on Fezzik. "How many could you handle at the most?"

"Well, some of them are from the Brute Squad, so I don't think more than eight."

"Leaving me twelve, which is not impossible, but not the best way to spend your first evening after three months on brandy." And suddenly Inigo's body sagged and in his eyes, bright a moment ago, now there was moisture.

"What has happened?" Fezzik cried.

"Oh, my friend, my friend, I need Vizzini. I am not a planner. I follow. Tell me what to do and no man alive does it better. But my mind is like fine wine; it travels badly. I go from thought to thought but not with logic, and I forget things, and help me, Fezzik, what am I to do?"

Fezzik wanted to cry now too. "I'm the stupidest fellow that was ever born; you know that. I couldn't remember to come back here even after you made up that special lovely rhyme for me."

"I need Vizzini."

"But Vizzini is dead."

And then Inigo was up again, blazing about the kitchen, and for the first time his fingers were snapping with excitement: "I don't need Vizzini; I need his master: I need the man in black! Look—he bested me with steel, my greatness; he bested you with strength, yours. He must have outplanned and outthought Vizzini and he will tell me how to break through the castle and kill the six-fingered beast. If you have the least notion where the man in black is at this moment, relate, quickly, the answer."

"He sails the seven seas with the Dread Pirate Roberts."

"Why would he do a thing like that?"

"Because he is a sailor for the Dread Pirate Roberts."

"A sailor? A common sailor? A common ordinary seaman bests the great Inigo Montoya with the sword? In-con-ceiv-a-ble. He must be the Dread Pirate Roberts. Otherwise it makes no sense."

"In any event, he is sailing far away. Count Rugen says so and the Prince himself gave the order. The Prince wants no pirates around, what with all the trouble he is having with Guilder—remember, they kidnapped the Princess once, they might try—"

"Fezzik, we kidnapped the Princess once. You never were strong on memory, but even you should recall that we put the Guilder uniform pieces under the Princess's saddle. Vizzini did it because he was under orders to do it. Someone wanted Guilder to look guilty and who but a noble would want that and what noble more than the war-loving Prince himself? We never knew who hired Vizzini. I guess Humperdinck. And as for the Count's word on the man in black's whereabouts, since the Count is the same man who slaughtered my father, we can rest assured that he is certainly a terrific fellow." He started for the door. "Come. We have much to do."

Fezzik followed him through the darkening streets of the Thieves Quarter. "You'll explain things to me as we go along?" Fezzik asked.

"I'll explain them to you now...." His bladelike body knifed on through the quiet streets, Fezzik hurrying alongside. "(a) I need to reach Count Rugen to at last avenge my father; (b) I cannot plan on how to reach Count Rugen; (c) Vizzini could have planned it for me but, (c prime) Vizzini is unavailable; however, (d) the man in black outplanned Vizzini, so, therefore, (e) the man in black can get me to Count Rugen."

"But I told you, Prince Humperdinck, after he captured him, gave orders for all to hear that the man in black was to be returned safely to his ship. Everyone in Florin knows this to be so."

"(a) Prince Humperdinck had some plans to kill his fiancée and hired us to carry them out but (b) the man in black ruined Prince Humperdinck's plans; however, eventually, (c) Prince Humperdinck managed to capture the man in black, and, as everybody in all Florin City also knows, Prince Humperdinck has a terrible temper, so, therefore, (d) if a man has a terrible temper, what could be more fun than losing it against the very fellow who spoiled your plans to kill your fiancée?" They had reached the Thieves Quarter wall now. Inigo jumped on Fezzik's shoulders and Fezzik started to climb. "Conclusion (1)," Inigo continued, not missing a beat, "since the Prince is in Florin City taking out his temper on the man in black, the man in black must also be in Florin City. Conclusion (2), the man in black must not be too happy with his present situation. Conclusion (3), I am in Florin City and need a planner to avenge my father, while he is in Florin City and needs a rescuer to salvage his future, and when people have equal needs of each other, conclusion (4 and final), deals are made."

Fezzik reached the top of the wall and started carefully climbing down the other side. "I understand everything," he said.

"You understand nothing, but it really doesn't matter, since what you mean is, you're glad to see me, just as I'm glad to see you because no more loneliness."

"That's what I mean," said Fezzik.

IT WAS DUSK when they began their search blindly through all of Florin City. Dusk, a day before the wedding. Count Rugen was about to begin his nightly experiments at that dusk, gathering up his notebooks from his room, filled with all his jottings. Five levels underground, behind high castle walls, locked and chained and silent, Westley waited beside the Machine. In a way, he still looked like Westley, except, of course, that he had been broken. Twenty years of his life had been sucked away. Twenty were left. Pain was anticipation. Soon the Count would come again. Against any wishes he had left, Westley went on crying.

IT WAS DUSK when Buttercup went to see the Prince. She knocked loudly, waited, knocked again. She could hear him shouting inside, and if it had not been so important, she would never have knocked the third time, but she did, and the door was yanked open, and the look of anger on his face immediately changed to the sweetest smile. "Beloved," he said. "Come in. A moment more is all I need." And he turned back to Yellin. "Look at her, Yellin. My bride-to-be. Has any man ever been so blessed?"

Yellin shook his head.

"Am I wrong, do you think, to go to any lengths, then, to protect her?"

Yellin shook his head again. The Prince was driving him crazy with his stories of the Guilder infiltration. Yellin had every spy he'd ever used working day and night and not one of them had come up with anything about Guilder. And yet the Prince insisted. Inwardly, Yellin sighed. It was beyond him; he was simply an enforcer, not a prince. In fact, the only remotely disturbing news he'd heard since he'd closed the Thieves Quarter that morning was within the hour, when someone told him of a rumor that the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts had perhaps been seen sailing all the way into Florin Channel itself. But such a thing, Yellin knew from long experience, was, simply, rumor.

"I'll tell you, they are everywhere, these Guilders," the Prince went on. "And since you seem unable to stop them, I wish to change some plans. All the gates have been sealed to my castle except the front one, yes?"

"Yes. And twenty men guard it."

"Add eighty more. I want a hundred men. Clear?"

"A hundred men it will be. Every Brute available."

"Inside the castle I'm quite safe. I have my own supplies, food, stables, enough. As long as they cannot get at me, I will survive. These, then, are the new and final plans—jot them down. All five-hundredth-anniversary arrangements are canceled until after the wedding. The wedding is tomorrow at sunset. My bride and I will ride my whites to Florin Channel surrounded by all your enforcers. There we will board a ship and begin our long-awaited honeymoon surrounded by every ship in the Florin Armada—"

"Every ship but four," Buttercup corrected.

He blinked at her a moment in silence. Then he said, blowing her a kiss, but discreetly, so Yellin couldn't see, "Yes yes, how forgetful I am, every ship but four." He turned back to Yellin.

But in his blink, in that following silence, Buttercup had seen it all.

"Those ships will stay with us until I deem it safe to release them. Of course, Guilder could attack then, but that is a chance we must risk. Let me think if there's anything else." The Prince loved giving orders, especially the kind he knew would never need carrying out. Also, Yellin was a slow jotter, and that only added to the fun. "Excused," the Prince said finally.

With a bow, Yellin was gone.

"The four ships were never sent," Buttercup said, when they were alone. "Don't bother lying to me anymore."

"Whatever was done was done for your own good, sweet pudding."

"Somehow, I do not think so."

"You're nervous, I'm nervous; we're getting married tomorrow, we've got a right to be."

"You couldn't be more wrong, you know; I'm very calm." And in truth, she did seem that way. "It doesn't matter whether you sent the ships or not. Westley will come for me. There is a God; I know that. And there is love; I know that too; so Westley will save me."

"You're a silly girl, now go to your room."

"Yes, I am a silly girl and, yes again, I will go to my room, and you are a coward with a heart filled with nothing but fear."

The Prince had to laugh. "The greatest hunter in the world and you say I am a coward?"

"I do, I do indeed. I'm getting much smarter as I age. I say you are a coward and you are; I think you hunt only to reassure yourself that you are not what you are: the weakest thing to ever walk the earth. He will come for me and then we will be gone, and you will be helpless for all your hunting, because Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords."

Humperdinck screamed toward her then, ripping at her autumn hair, yanking her from her feet and down the long curving corridor to her room, where he tore that door open and threw her inside and locked her there and started running for the underground entrance to the Zoo of Death—

***

My father stopped reading.

'Go on,' I said.

'Lost my place,' he said and I waited there, still weak with pneumonia and wet with fear until he started reading again. 'Inigo allowed Fezzik to open the door—' 'Hey,' I said. 'Hold it, that's not right, you skipped,' and then I quick caught my tongue because we'd just had that scene when I got all upset about Buttercup marrying Humperdinck when I'd accused him of skipping, and I didn't want any repeat of that. 'Daddy,' I said, I don't mean anything or anything, but wasn't the Prince sort of running toward the Zoo and then the next thing you said was about Inigo, and maybe, I mean, shouldn't there be a page or like that in between?'

My father started to close the book.

'I'm not fighting; please, don't close it.'

'It is not for that,' he said, and then he looked at me for a long time. 'Billy,' he said (he almost never called me that; I loved it when he did; anybody else I hated it, but when the barber did it, I don't know, I just melted), 'Billy, do you trust me?'

'What is that? Of course I do.'

'Billy, you got pneumonia; you're taking this book very serious, I know, because we already fought once about it.'

'I'm not fighting anymore—'

'Listen to me—I never lied to you yet, did I? Okay. Trust me. I don't want to read you the rest of this chapter and I want you to say it's all right.'

'Why? What happens in the rest of this chapter?'

'If I tell you, I could accomplish the same by reading. Just say okay.'

'I can't say that until I know what happens.'

'But—'

'Tell me what happens and I'll tell you if it's okay and I promise if I don't want to hear it, you can skip on to Inigo.' 'You won't do me this favor?'

'I'll sneak out of bed when you're asleep; I don't care where you hide the book, I'll find it and I'll read the rest of the chapter myself, so you might as well tell me.'

'Billy, please?'

'I gotcha; you might as well admit it.'

My father sighed this terrible sound.

I knew I had him beaten then.

'Westley dies,' my father said.

I said, 'What do you mean, "Westley dies"? You mean dies?'

My father nodded. 'Prince Humperdinck kills him.'

'He's only faking though, right?'

My father shook his head, closed the book all the way.

Aw shit,' I said and I started to cry.

'I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'll leave you alone,' and he left me.

'Who gets Humperdinck?' I screamed after him.

He stopped in the hall. I don't understand.'

'Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to get him. Is it Fezzik? Who?'

'Nobody kills him. He lives.'

'You mean he wins, Daddy? Jesus, what did you read me this thing for?' and I buried my head in my pillow and I never cried like that again, not once to this day. I could feel almost my heart emptying into my pillow. I guess the most amazing thing about crying though is that when you're in it, you think it'll go on forever but it never really lasts half what you think. Not in terms of real time. In terms of real emotions, it's worse than you think, but not by the clock. When my father came back, it couldn't have been even an hour later.

'So,' he said, 'shall we go on tonight or not?'

'Shoot,' I told him. Eyes dry, no catch in throat, nothing. 'Fire when ready.'

'With Inigo?'

'Let's hear the murder,' I said. I knew I wasn't about to bawl again. Like Buttercup's, my heart was now a secret garden and the walls were very high.

***

HUMPERDINCK SCREAMED TOWARD her then, ripping at her autumn hair, yanking her from her feet and down the long curving corridor to her room, where he tore that door open and threw her inside and locked her there and started running for the underground entrance to the Zoo of Death and down he plunged, giant stride after giant stride, and when he threw the door of the fifth-level cage open, even Count Rugen was startled at the purity of whatever the emotion was that was reflected in the Prince's eyes. The Prince moved to Westley. "She loves you," the Prince cried. "She loves you still and you love her, so think of that—think of this too: in all this world, you might have been happy, genuinely happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, not really, no matter what the storybooks say, but you could have had it, and so, I would think, no one will ever suffer a loss as great as you" and with that he grabbed the dial and pushed it all the way forward and the Count cried, "Not to twenty!" but by then it was too late; the death scream had started.

IT WAS MUCH worse than the scream of the wild dog. In the first place, the dial for the wild dog had only been set at six, whereas this was more than triple that. And so, naturally enough, it was more than three times as long. And more than three times as loud. But none of this really was why it was worse.

It was the scream from a human throat that made the difference.

In her chamber, Buttercup heard it, and it frightened her, but she had not the least idea what it was.

By the main door of the castle, Yellin heard it, and it also frightened him, though he couldn't imagine what it was either.

All the hundred Brutes and fighters flanked by the main door heard it too, and, to a man, they were bothered by it, and they talked it over for quite a while, but none of them had any sound notions as to what it might have been.

The Great Square was filled with common people excited about the coming wedding and anniversary, and they all heard it too, and no one even made the pretense of not being scared, but, again, none of them knew at all what it might have been.

The death scream rose higher in the night.

All the streets leading into the Square were also filled with citizens, all trying to crowd into the Square, and they heard it, but once they admitted they were petrified, they gave up trying to guess what it might have been.

Inigo knew immediately.

In the tiny alley that he and Fezzik were trying to force their way through, he stopped, remembering. The alley led to the streets that led to the Square, and the alley was jammed too.

"I don't like that sound," Fezzik said, his skin, for the moment, cold.

Inigo grabbed the giant and the words began pouring out: "Fezzik—Fezzik—that is the sound of Ultimate Suffering—I know that sound—that was the sound in my heart when Count Rugen slaughtered my father and I saw him fall—the man in black makes it now—"

"You think that's him?"

"Who else has cause for Ultimate Suffering this celebration night?" And with that, he started to follow the sound.

But the crowds were in his way, and he was strong but he was thin and he cried, "Fezzik—Fezzik—we must track that sound, we must trace it to its source, and I cannot move, so you must lead me. Fly, Fezzik; this is Inigo begging you—make a path—please! "

Well, Fezzik had rarely had anyone beg him for anything, least of all Inigo, and when something like that happened, you did what you could, so Fezzik, without waiting, began to push. Forward. Lots of people. Fezzik pushed harder. Lots of people began to move. Out of Fezzik's way. Fast.

The death scream was starting to fade now, fading in the clouds.

"Fezzik!" said Inigo. "All your power, now."

Down the alley Fezzik ran, people screaming and diving to get out of his way, and in his footsteps Inigo kept pace, and at the end of the alley was a street and the scream was fainter now but Fezzik turned left and into the middle of the street he went and he owned it, no one was in his way, nothing dared block his way, and the scream was getting just so hard to hear, so with all his might Fezzik roared, "QUIET!" and the street was suddenly hushed and Fezzik pounded along, Inigo right behind, and the scream was still there, still faintly there, and into the Great Square itself and the castle beyond before the scream was gone....

WESTLEY LAY DEAD by the Machine. The Prince kept the dial by the twenty mark long long after it was necessary, until the Count said, "Done."

The Prince left without another look at Westley. He took the secret underground stairs four at a time. "She actually called me a coward," he said, and then he was gone from sight.

Count Rugen started taking notes. Then he threw his quill pen down. He tested Westley briefly, then he shook his head. Death was not of any intellectual interest to him at all; when you were dead, you couldn't react to pain. The Count said, "Dispose of the body," because, even though he couldn't see the albino, he knew the albino was there. It was really a shame, he realized as he mounted the stairs after the Prince. You just didn't come across victims like Westley every day of the year.

When they were gone, the albino came out, pulled the cups from the corpse, decided to burn the body on the garbage pyre back behind the castle. Which meant a wheelbarrow. He hurried up the underground stairs, came out the secret entrance, moved quickly to the main tool shed; all the wheelbarrows were buried back at the rear wall, behind the hoes and rakes and hedge trimmers. The albino made a hissing sound of displeasure and began to pick his way past all the other equipment. This kind of thing always seemed to happen to him when he was in a hurry. The albino hissed again, extra work, extra work, all the time. Wouldn't you just know it?

He finally got the barrow out and was just passing the false and deadly supposed main entrance to the Zoo when "I'm having the devil's own trouble tracking that scream" was spoken to him, and the albino whirled to find, there, there in the castle grounds, a blade-thin stranger with a sword in his hand. The sword suddenly flicked its way to the albino's throat. "Where is the man in black?" the swordsman said then. He had a giant scar slanting down each cheek and seemed like no one to trifle with.

Whispered: "I know no man in black."

"Did the scream come from that place?" The fellow indicated the main entrance.

Nod.

"And the throat it came from? I need this man, so be quick!"

Whispered: "Westley."

Inigo reasoned: "A sailor? Brought here by Rugen?"

Nod.

"And I reach him where?"

The albino hesitated, then pointed to the deadly entrance. Whispered: "He is on the bottom level. Five levels down."

"Then I have no more need for you. Quiet him a while, Fezzik."

From behind him, the albino was aware of a giant shadow moving. Funny, he thought—the last thing he remembered—I thought that was a tree.

Inigo was on fire now. There was no stopping him. Fezzik hesitated by the main door. "Why would he tell the truth?"

"He's a zookeeper threatened with death. Why would he lie?"

"That doesn't follow."

"I don't care!" Inigo said sharply, and, in fact, he didn't. He knew in his heart the man in black was down there. There was no other reason for Fezzik to find him, for Fezzik to know of Rugen, for everything to be coming together after so many years of waiting. If there was a God, then there was a man in black waiting. Inigo knew that. He knew it. And, of course, he was absolutely right. But again, of course, there were many things he did not know. That the man in black was dead, for one. That the entrance they were taking was the wrong one, for another, a false one, set up to foil those, like himself, who did not belong. There were spitting cobras down there, though what would actually come at him would be worse. These things he did not know either.

But his father had to be revenged. And the man in black would figure out how. That was enough for Inigo.

And so, with an urgency that would soon turn to deep regret, he and Fezzik approached the Zoo of Death.

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