The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride Page 60

This was in the middle of Greenland, and, as everybody knows, Greenland then as now was the loneliest place on the Earth. In Greenland, there is one person for every twenty square miles of real estate. Probably the circus was pretty stupid taking a booking there, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that Fezzik was alone.

In the loneliest place in the world.

Just sitting there on a rock watching the circus pull away.

He was still sitting there the next day when Vizzini the Sicilian found him. Vizzini flattered him, promised to keep the BOOOOOOOOOOOS away. Vizzini needed Fezzik. But not half as much as Fezzik needed Vizzini. As long as Vizzini was around, you couldn’t be alone. Whatever Vizzini said, Fezzik did. And if that meant crushing the head of the man in black…

So be it.

But not by ambush. Not the coward’s way. Nothing unsportsmanlike. His parents had always taught him to go by the rules. Fezzik stood in shadow, the great rock tight in his great hand. He could hear the footsteps of the man in black coming nearer. Nearer.

Fezzik leaped from hiding and threw the rock with incredible power and perfect accuracy. It smashed into a boulder a foot away from the face of the man in black. “I did that on purpose,” Fezzik said then, picking up another rock, holding it ready. “I didn’t have to miss.”

“I believe you,” the man in black said.

They stood facing each other on the narrow mountain path.

“Now what happens?” asked the man in black.

“We face each other as God intended,” Fezzik said. “No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.”

“You mean you’ll put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword and we’ll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?”

“If you’d rather, I can kill you now,” Fezzik said gently, and he raised the rock to throw. “I’m giving you a chance.”

“So you are and I accept it,” said the man in black, and he began to take off his sword and scabbard. “Although, frankly, I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting.”

“I tell you what I tell everybody,” Fezzik explained. “I cannot help being the biggest and strongest; it’s not my fault.”

“I’m not blaming you,” said the man in black.

“Let’s get to it then,” Fezzik said, and he dropped his rock and got into fighting position, watching as the man in black slowly moved toward him. For a moment, Fezzik felt almost wistful. This was clearly a good fellow, even if he had killed Inigo. He didn’t complain or try and beg or bribe. He just accepted his fate. No complaining, nothing like that. Obviously a criminal of character. (Was he a criminal, though, Fezzik wondered. Surely the mask would indicate that. Or was it worse than that: was he disfigured? His face burned away by acid perhaps? Or perhaps born hideous?)

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?” Fezzik asked.

“I think everybody will in the near future” was the man in black’s reply. “They’re terribly comfortable.”

They faced each other on the mountain path. There was a moment’s pause. Then they engaged. Fezzik let the man in black fiddle around for a bit, tested the man’s strength, which was considerable for someone who wasn’t a giant. He let the man in black feint and dodge and try a hold here, a hold there. Then, when he was quite sure the man in black would not go to his maker embarrassed, Fezzik locked his arms tight around.

Fezzik lifted.

And squeezed.

And squeezed.

Then he took the remains of the man in black, snapped him one way, snapped him the other, cracked him with one hand in the neck, with the other at the spine base, locked his legs up, rolled his limp arms around them, and tossed the entire bundle of what had once been human into a nearby crevice.