"Quite a bizarre place," Inigo said, moving past several large cages in which were cheetahs and hummingbirds and other swift things. At the end of the hall was another door with a sign above it saying, "To Level Two." They opened that door and saw a flight of stairs leading very steeply down. "Careful," Inigo said; "stay close to me and watch your balance."
They started down toward the second level.
"If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh at me or mock me or be mean to me?" Fezzik asked.
"My word," Inigo nodded.
"I'm just scared to pieces," Fezzik said.
"Be sure it ceases," Inigo said right back.
"Oh, that's a wonderful rhyme--"
"Some other time," Inigo said, making another, feeling quite bright about the whole thing, sensing the pleasure in having Fezzik visibly relax as they descended, so he smiled and clapped Fezzik on his great shoulder for the good fellow he was. But deep, deep inside, Inigo's stomach was knotting. He was absolutely appalled and astonished that a man of unlimited strength and power would be scared to pieces; until Fezzik spoke, Inigo was positive that he was the only one who was genuinely scared to pieces, and the fact that they both were did not bode well if panic time came. Someone would have to keep his wits, and he had assumed automatically that since Fezzik had so few, he would find retaining them not all that difficult. No good, Inigo realized. Well, he would simply have to do his best to avoid panic situations and that was that.
The staircase was straight, and very long, but eventually they reached the end of it. Another door. Fezzik gave it a push. It opened. Another corridor lined with cages, big ones though, and inside, great baying hippos and a twenty-foot alligator thrashing angrily in shallow water.
"We must hurry," Inigo said, picking up the pace; "much as we might like to dawdle," and he half ran toward a sign that said, "To Level Three." Inigo opened the door and looked down and Fezzik peered over his shoulder. "Hmmm," Inigo said.
This staircase was different. It was not nearly as steep, and it curved halfway, so that whatever was near the bottom of it was quite out of sight as they stood at the top preparing to go down. There were strange candles burning high on the walls out of reach. The shadows they made were very long and very thin.
"Well, I'm certainly glad I wasn't brought up here," Inigo said, trying for a joke.
"Fear," Fezzik said, the rhyme out before he could stop it.
Inigo exploded. "Really! If you can't maintain control, I'm going to send you right back up and you can just wait there all by yourself."
"Don't leave me; I mean, don't make me leave you. Please. I meant to say 'beer'; I don't know how the f got in there."
"I'm really losing patience with you; come along," Inigo said, and he started down the curving stairs, Fezzik following, and as the door closed behind them, two things happened:
(1) The door, quite clearly, locked.
(2) Out went the candles on the high walls.
"DON'T BE FRIGHTENED!" Inigo screamed.
"I'M NOT, I'M NOT!" Fezzik screamed right back. And then, above his heartbeat, he managed, "What are we going to do?"
"S-s-s-simple," said Inigo after a while.
"Are you frightened too?" asked Fezzik in the darkness.
"Not ... remotely," Inigo said with great care. "And before, I meant to say 'easy'; I don't know how the 's-s-s-s-' got in there. Look: we can't go back and we certainly don't want to stay here, so we just must keep on going as we were before these little things happened. Down. Down is our direction, Fezzik, but I can tell you're a bit edgy about all this, so, out of the goodness of my heart, I will let you walk down not behind me, and not in front of me, but right next to me, on the same step, stride for stride, and you put an arm around my shoulder, because that will probably make you feel better, and I, so as not to make you feel foolish, will put an arm around your shoulder, and thus, safe, protected, together, we will descend."
"Will you draw your sword with your free hand?"
"I already have. Will you make a fist with yours?"
"It's clenched."
"Then let's look on the bright side: we're having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are."
They moved down one step. Then another. Then two, then three, as they got the hang of it.
"Why do you think they locked the door behind us?" Fezzik asked as they moved.
"To add spice to our trip, I suspect," replied Inigo. It was certainly one of his weaker answers, but the best he could come up with.
"Here's where the turn starts," said Fezzik, and they slowed, making the sharp turn without stumbling, continuing on down. "And they took away the candles for the same reason--spice?"
"Most likely. Don't squeeze me quite so hard--"
"Don't you squeeze me quite so hard--"
By then they knew they were for it.
There has been, for many years, a running battle among jungle zoologists as to just which of the giant snakes is the biggest. The anaconda men are forever trumpeting the Orinoco specimen that weighed well over five hundred pounds, while the python people never fail to reply by pointing out that the African Rock found outside Zambesi measured thirty-four feet, seven inches. The argument, of course, is silly, because "biggest" is a vague word, having no value whatever in arguments, if one is serious.
But any serious snake enthusiast would admit, whatever his schooling, that the Arabian Garstini, though shorter than the python and lighter than the anaconda, was quicker and more ravenous than either, and this specimen of Prince Humperdinck's was not only remarkable for its speed and agility, it was also kept in a permanent state just verging on the outskirts of starvation, so the first coil came like lightning as it dropped from above them and pinioned their hands so the fist and sword were useless and the second coil imprisoned their arms and "Do something--" Inigo cried.
"I can't--I'm caught--you do something--"
"Fight it, Fezzik--"
"It's too strong for me--"
"Nothing is too strong for you--"
The third coil was done now, around the upper shoulders, and the fourth coil, the final coil, involved the throat, and Inigo whispered in terror, because he could hear the beast's breathing now, could actually feel its breath, "Fight it ... I'm ... I'm..."
Fezzik trembled with fear and whispered, "Forgive me, Inigo."
"Oh, Fezzik ... Fezzik..."
"What...?"
"I had such rhymes for you...."
"What rhymes?..."
Silence.
The fourth coil was finished.
"Inigo, what rhymes?"
Silence.
Snake breath.
"Inigo, I want to know the rhymes before I die--Inigo, I really want to know--Inigo, tell me the rhymes" Fezzik said, and by now he was very frustrated and, more than that, he was spectacularly angry and one arm came clear of one coil and that made it a bit less of a chore to fight free of the second coil and that meant he could take that arm and bring it to the aid of the other arm and now he was yelling it out, "You're not going anywhere until I know those rhymes" and the sound of his own voice was really very impressive, deep and resonant, and who was this snake anyway, getting in the path of Fezzik when there were rhymes to learn, and by this time not only were both arms free of the bottom three coils but he was furious at the interruption and his hands grabbed toward the snake breath, and he didn't know if snakes had necks or not but whatever it was that you called the part that was under its mouth, that was the part he had between his great hands and he gave it a smash against the wall and the snake hissed and spit but the fourth coil was looser, so Fezzik smashed it again and a third time and then he brought his hands back a bit for leverage and he began to whip the beast against the walls like a native washerwoman beating a skirt against rocks, and when the snake was dead, Inigo said, "Actually, I had no specific rhymes in mind; I just had to do something to get you into action."
Fezzik was panting terribly
from his labors. "You lied to me is what you're saying. My only friend in all my life turns out to be a liar." He started tromping down the stairs, Inigo stumbling after him.
Fezzik reached the door at the bottom and threw it open and slammed it, with Inigo just managing to slip inside before the door crashed shut.
It locked immediately.
At the end of this corridor, the "To Level Four" sign was clearly visible, and Fezzik hurried toward it. Inigo pursued him, hurrying past the poisoners, the spitting cobras and Gaboon vipers and, perhaps most quickly lethal of all, the lovely tropical stonefish from the ocean outside India.
"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 and 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.
Inigo waited, waited, the flutter was off to the left, and that was wrong, because he knew where he was and so did the beasts, so that meant they must have been preparing something for him, a cut, a sudden turn, and with all control left to his brain he kept his sword just as it was, circling slowly, not following the sound until the fluttering stopped and the king bat veered in silence toward Inigo's face.
The six-fingered sword drove through like butter.
The death sound of the king bat was close to human, only a bit higher pitched and shorter, and Inigo was only briefly interested because now there was a double flutter; they were coming at him from two sides and one right, one left, and MacPherson told him always move from strength to weakness, so Inigo stabbed first to the right, then drove left, and two more almost human sounds came and went. The sword was heavy now, three dead beasts changed the balance, and Inigo wanted to clear the weapon, but now another flutter, a single one, and no veering this time, straight and deadly for his face and he ducked and was lucky; the sword moved up and into the heart of the lethal thing and now there were four skewered on the sword of legend, and Inigo knew he was not about to lose this fight and from his throat came the words, "I am Inigo Montoya and still the Wizard; come for me," and when he heard three of them fluttering, he wished he had been just a bit more modest but it was too late for that, so he needed surprise, and he took it, shifting position against the beasts, standing straight, taking their dives long before they expected it, and now there were seven king bats and his sword was completely out of balance and that would have been a bad thing, a dangerous thing, except for one important aspect: there was silence now in the darkness. The fluttering was done.
"Some giant you are," Inigo said then, and he stepped over Fezzik and hurried down the rest of the darkened stairs.
Fezzik got up and lumbered after him, saying, "Inigo, listen, I made a mistake before, you didn't lie to me, you tricked me, and father always said tricking was fine, so I'm not mad at you anymore, and is that all right with you? It's all right with me."
They turned the knob on the door at the bottom of the black stairs and stepped onto the fourth level.
Inigo looked at him. "You mean you'll forgive me completely for saving your life if I completely forgive you for saving mine?"
"You're my friend, my only one."
"Pathetic, that's what we are," Inigo said.
"Athletic."
"That's very good," Inigo said, so Fezzik knew they were fine again. They started toward the sign that said, "To Level Five," passing strange cages. "This is the worst yet," Inigo said, and then he jumped back, because behind a pale glass case, a blood eagle was actually eating what looked like an arm. And on the other side there was a great black pool, and whatever was in it was dark and many armed and the water seemed to get sucked toward the center of the pool where the mouth of the thing was. "Hurry," Inigo said, and he found himself trembling at the thought of being dropped into the black pool.
They opened the door and looked down toward the fifth level.
Stunning.
In the first place, the door they opened had no lock, so it could not trap them. And in the second place the stairs were all brightly lit. And in the third place the stairs were absolutely straight. And in the fourth place, it wasn't a long flight at all.
And in the main place, there was nothing inside. It was bright and clean and totally, without the least doubt, empty.
"I don't believe it for a minute," Inigo said, and, holding his swor
d at the ready, he took the first step down. "Stay by the door--the candles will go out any second."
He took a second step down.
The candles stayed bright.
A third step. The fourth. There were only about a dozen steps in all, and he took two more, stopping in the middle. Each step was perhaps a foot in width, so he was six feet from Fezzik, six feet from the large, ornate green-handled door that opened onto the final level. "Fezzik?"
From the upper door: "What?"
"I'm frightened."
"It looks all right though."
"No. It's supposed to; that's to fool us. Whatever we've gotten by before, this must be worse."
"But there's nothing to see, Inigo."
Inigo nodded. "That's why I'm so frightened." He took another step down toward the final, ornate green-handled door. Another. Four steps to go. Four feet to go.
Forty-eight inches from death.
Inigo took another step. He was trembling now; almost out of control.
"Why are you shaking?" Fezzik from the top.
"Death is here. Death is here." He took another step down.
Twenty-four inches to dying.
"Can I come join you now?"
Inigo shook his head. "No point in your dying too."
"But it's empty."
"No. Death is here." Now he was out of control. "If I could see it, I could fight it."
Fezzik didn't know what to do.
"I'm Inigo Montoya the Wizard; come for me!" He turned around and around, sword ready, studying the brightly lit staircase.
"Now you're scaring me," Fezzik said, and he let the door close behind him and started down the stairs.
Inigo started up after him, saying "No." They met on the sixth step.
Seventy-two inches from death now.
The green speckled recluse doesn't destroy as quickly as the stonefish. And many think the mamba brings more suffering, what with the ulcerating and all. But gram for gram, nothing in the universe comes close to the green speckled recluse; among other spiders, compared with the green speckled recluse, the black widow was a rag doll. Prince Humperdinck's recluse lived behind the ornate green handle on the bottom door. She rarely moved, unless the handle turned. Then she struck like lightning.