The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride Page 109

“I apologize,” Inigo said. “One lie in all these years, that’s not such a terrible average when you consider it saved our lives.”

“There’s such a thing as principle” was all Fezzik would answer, and he opened the door that led to the fourth level. “My father made me promise never to lie, and not once in my life have I even been tempted,” and he started down the stairs.

“Stop!” Inigo said. “At least examine where we’re going.”

It was a straight staircase, but completely dark. The opening at the far end was invisible. “It can’t be as bad as where we’ve been,” Fezzik snapped, and down he went.

In a way, he was right. For Inigo, bats were never the ultimate nightmare. Oh, he was afraid of them, like everybody else, and he would run and scream if they came near; in his mind, though, hell was not bat-infested. But Fezzik was a Turkish boy, and people claim the fruit bat from Indonesia is the biggest in the world; try telling that to a Turk sometime. Try telling that to anyone who has heard his mother scream, “Here come the king bats!” followed by the poisonous fluttering of wings.

“HERE COME THE KING BATS!” Fezzik screamed, and he was, quite literally, as he stood halfway down the dark steps, paralyzed with fear, and behind him now, doing his best to fight the darkness, came Inigo, and he had never heard that tone before, not from Fezzik, and Inigo didn’t want bats in his hair either, but it wasn’t worth that kind of fright, so he started to say “What’s so terrible about king bats” but “What” was all he had time for before Fezzik cried, “Rabies! Rabies!” and that was all Inigo needed to know, and he yelled, “Down, Fezzik,” and Fezzik still couldn’t move, so Inigo felt for him in the darkness as the fluttering grew louder and with all his strength he slammed the giant on the shoulder hollering “Down” and this time Fezzik went to his knees obediently, but that wasn’t enough, not nearly, so Inigo slammed him again crying, “Flat, flat, all the way down,” until Fezzik lay on the black stairs shaking and Inigo knelt above him, the great six-fingered sword flying into his hands, and this was it, this was a test to see how far down the ninety days of brandy had taken him, how much of the great Inigo Montoya remained, for, yes, he had studied fencing, true, he had spent half his life and more learning the Agrippa attack and the Bonetti defense and of course he had studied his Thibault, but he had also, one desperate time, spent a summer with the only Scot who ever understood swords, the crippled MacPherson, and it was MacPherson who scoffed at everything Inigo knew, it was MacPherson who said, “Thibault, Thibault is fine if you fight in a ballroom, but what if you meet your enemy on terrain that is tilted and you are below him,” and for a week, Inigo studied all the moves from below, and then MacPherson put him on a hill in the upper position, and when those moves were mastered, MacPherson kept right on, for he was a cripple, his legs stopped at the knee, and so he had a special feel for adversity. “And what if your enemy blinds you?” MacPherson once said. “He throws acid in your eyes a nd now he drives in for the kill; what do you do? Tell me that, Spaniard, survive that, Spaniard.” And now, waiting for the charge of the king bats, Inigo flung his mind back toward the MacPherson moves, and you had to depend on your ears, you found his heart from his sounds, and now, as he waited, above him Inigo could feel the king bats massing, while below him Fezzik trembled like a kitten in cold water.

“Be still!” Inigo commanded, and that was the last sound he made, because he needed his ears now, and he tilted his head toward the flutter, the great sword firm in his right hand, the deadly point circling slowly in the air. Inigo had never seen a king bat, knew nothing of them; how fast were they, how did they come at you, at what angle, and how many made each charge? The flutter was dead above him now, ten feet perhaps, perhaps more, and could bats see in the night? Did they have that weapon too? “Come on!” Inigo was about to say, but there was no need, because with a rush of wings he had expected and a high long shriek he had not, the first king bat swooped down at him.