Princess Bride

[cosmictragedy]

 The  orangutan fell like a rag doll. "Now, what is all this," the Prince replied, steppimg past the dead beast, mounting the ladder out of the pit.
"Your father has had his annual physical,"  the Count said. "I have the report."
"And?"
"Your father is dying."
"Drat!" said the Prince. "That means I shall have to get married."


The Prince whirled on her. "I'm not marrying any bald princess, and that's that!"
"No one would know," Queen Bella explained. "She has hats even for sleeping."
"I would know," cried the Prince. "Did you see the candlelight reflecting off her skull?"
"But things would have been so good with Guilder," the Queen said, addressing herself half to the Prince, half to Count Rugen, who now joined them.
"Forget about Guilder. I'll conquer it sometime. I've been wanting to  ever since I was a kid anyway." He approached the Queen. "People snicker behind  your back when you've got a bald wife, and I can do without that, thank you. You'll just have to find someone else."


"A milkmaid." The Prince  ran the words across his rough tongue . "I don't know that I could wed one of them even under the best of conditions. People might snicker that she was the best I could do."
"True," the Count admitted. "If you prefer, we can ride back to Florin City without waiting."
"We've come this far," the Prince said. "We might as well wai--" His voice quite simply died. "I'll take her," he managed, finally,  as Buttercup rode slowly by below them.
"No one will snicker, I think." the Count said.
"I must court her now," said the Prince. "Leave us alone for a minute." He rode the white expertly down the hill.
Buttercup had never seen such a giant beast. Or such a rider.
"I am your Prince and you will marry me," Humperdink said.
Buttercup whispered, "I am your servant and I refuse."
"I am your Prince and you cannot refuse."
"I am your loyal servant and I just did."
"Refusal means death."
"Kill me then."
"I am your Prince and I'm not that bad--how could you rather be dead than married to me?"
"Because," Buttercup said, "marriage involved love, and that is not a pastime as which I excel. I tried once, and it went badly, and I am sworn never to love another."


"Inconceivable!" the Sicilian cried.
The Spaniard whirled on him. "Stop saying that word. It was inconceivable that anyone could follow us, but when we looked behind, there was the man in black. It was inconceivable that anyone could sail as fast as we could sail, and yet he gained on us. Now this too is inconceivable, but look--look--" and the Spaniad pointed down through the night. "See how he rises."


"Hello there," Inigo hollered when he could wait no more.
The man in black glanced up and grunted.
"I've been watching you."
The man in black nodded.
"Slow going," Inigo said.
"Look, I don't mean to be rude," the man in black said finally, "but I'm rather busy just now, so try not to distract me."
"I'm sorry," Inigo said.
The man in black grunted again.
"I don't suppose you could speed things up," Inigo said.
"If you want to speed things up so much," the man in black said, clearly quite angry now, "you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find some other helpful thing to do."
"I could do that," Inigo agreed. "But I don't think you would accept my help, since I'm only waiting here so that I can kill you."
"That does put a damper on our relationship." the man in black said then. "I'm afraid you'll just have to wait."
Forty-three feet left.
Forty-one.
"I could give you my word as a Spaniard." Inigo said.
"No good," the man in black replied. "I've known too many Spaniards."
"I'm going crazy up here." Inigo said.
"Anytime you want to change places, I'd be happy to accept."
Thirty-nine feet.
And resting.
The man in black just hung in space, feet dangling the entire weight of his body supported by the strength of his hand jammed into the crevice.
"Come along now," Inigo pleaded.
"It's been a bit of a climb," the man in black explained, "and I'm weary. I'll be fine in a quarter-hour or so."
Another quarter-hour! Inconceivable. "Look, we've got a piece of extra rope up here we didn't need when we made our original climb, I'll just drop it down to you and you grab hold and I'll pull and--"
"No good," the man in black repeated. "You might pull, but then again, you also just might let go, which, since you're in a hurry to kill me, would certainly do the job quickly." 
"But you wouldn't have ever known I was going to kill you if I hadn't been the one to tell you. Doesn't that let you know that I can be trusted?"
"Frankly, and I hope you won't be insulted, no."
"There's no way you'll trust me?"
"Nothing comes to mind."
Suddenly Inigo raised his right hand high --"I swear on the soul of Domingo Montoya you will reach the top alive!"
The man in black was silent for a long time. Then he looked up. "I do not know this Domingo of yours, but something in your tone says I must believe you. Throw me the rope."


"I have my breath back now," the man in black said from the rock. "Thank you for allowing me my rest."
"We'd best get on with it then," Inigo replied.
The man in black stood.
"You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you."
"You seem a decent fellow," answered the man in black. "I hate to die."


And Inigo began to retreat.
"Who are you?" he screamed.
"No one of import. Another lover of the blade."
"I must know!"
"Get used to disappointment."


"In that case," said the man in black, "I challenge you to a battle of wits."
Vizzini had to smile. "For the Princess?"
:You read my mind."
"It just seems that way, I told you. It's merely logic and wisdom. To the death?"
"Correct again."
"I accept" cried Vizzini. "Begine the battle!"
"Pour the wine," said the man in black.
Vizzini filled the two goblets with deep-red liquid.
The man in black pulled from his dark clothing a small packet  and handed it to the hunchback. "Open it and inhale, but be careful not to touch."
Vizzini took the packet and followed instructions. "I smell nothing."
The man in black took the packet again. "What you do not smell is called iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless and dissolves immediately in any kind of liquid. It also happens to be the deadliest poison known to man."
Vizzini was beginning to get excited.
"I don't suppose you'd hand me the goblets," said the man in black.
Vizzini shook his head. "Take them yourself. My long knife does not leave her throat."
The man in black reached down for the goblets. He took them and turned away.
Vizzini  cackled aloud in anticipation.
The man in black busied himself a long moment. Then he turned again with a goblet in each hand. Very carefully, he put the goblet in his right hand in front of Vizzini and put the goblet in his left hand across the kerchief from the hunchback. He sat down in front of the left-hand goblet, and dropped the empty iocane packet by the cheese.
"Your guess," he said. "Where is the poison."
"Guess?" Vizzini cried. "I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess."
"The battle of wits has begun," said the man in black. "It ends when you decide and we drink the wine and find out who is right and who is dead. We both drink, need I add, and swallow, naturally, at precisely the same time."
"It's all so simple," said the hunchback. "All I have to do is deduce, from what I know of you, the way your mind works. Are you the kind of man who would put the poison into his own glass, or into the glass of his enemy?"
"You're stalling," said the man in black.
"I'm relishing is what I'm doing," answered the Scilian. "No one has challenged  my mind in years and I love it... By the way, may i smell both goblets?"
"Be my guest. Just be sure you put them down the same way you found them."
The Sicilian  sniffed his own glass; then he reached across the kerchief for the goblet of the man in black and sniffed that. "As you said, odorless."
"As I said also, you're stalling."
The Sicilian smiled and stared at the wine goblets. "Now a great fool," he began, "would place the wine in his own goblet, because he would know that only another great fool would reach first for what he was given. I am clearly not a great fool, so I will clearly not reach for your wine."
"That's your final choice?"
"No. Because you knew I was not a great fool, so you would know  that I would never fall for such a trick. You would count on it. So I will clearly not reach for mine either."
"Keep going," said the man in black.
"I intend to." The Sicilian reflected a moment. "We have now decided the poisoned cup is most likely in front of you. But the poison is powder made from iocane and iocane comes from only Australia and Australian, as everyone knows, is peopled with criminals and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as I don't trust you, which means I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."
The man in black was starting to get nervous.
"But, again,  you must have suspected I knew the origins of iocane, so you would have known I knew about  the criminals and criminal behavior, and therefore I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."
"Truly you have a dizzying intellect," whispered the man in black.
"You have beaten my Turk, which means you are exceptionally strong, and exceptionally strong men are convinced that they are too powerful ever to die, too powerful for even iocane poison, so you could have put it in your cup, trusting on your strength to save you; thus I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."
The man in black was very nervous now.
"But you also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, because he studied many years for his excellence, and if you can study, you are clearly more than simply strong; you are aware how mortal we all are, and you do not wish to die, so you would have kept the poison as far from yourself as possible; therefore I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."
"You are just trying to make me give something away with all this chatter," said the man in black angrily. "Well it won't work. You'll learn nothing from me, that I promise you."
"I have already learned everything from you," said the Sicilian. "I know where the poison is."
"Only a genius could have deduced as much."
"How fortunate for me that I happen to be one," said the hunchback, growing more and more amused now.


"You didn't want to see me."
"Of course I wanted to see you. I just didn't want to see you down here."
"Why ever not?"
"Because now, my precious, we're more or less kind of trapped. I can't climb out of here and bring you with me without it taking all day. I can get out myself, most likely, without it taking all day. but with the addition of your lovely bulk, it's not about to happen."
"Nonsense; you climbed the Cliffs of Insanity, and this isn't nearly that steep."
"And it took a little out of me too, let me tell you. And after that little effort, I tangled with a fella who knew a little something about fencing. And after that, I spend a few happy moments grappling with a giant. And after that, I had to outfake a Sicilian to death when any mistake meant it was a knife in the throat for you. And after that I've run my lungs out a couple of hours. And after that I was pushed two hundred feet down a rock ravine. I'm tired, Buttercup; do you understand tired? I've but in a night, is what I'm trying to get through to you."
"I'm not stupid, you know."
"Quit bragging."
"Stop being rude."


"It's too far around," the Count said.
"Not for my whites."
"We'll follow as best we can," the Count said. He stared again at the fire swamp. "He must be very desperate, or very frightened, or very stupid, or very brave."
"Very all four I should think," the Prince replied...


"Surrender," the Prince said.
"It will not happen."
"SURRENDER!" the Prince shouted.
"DEATH FIRST!" Westley roared.
"... will you promise not to hurt him...?" Buttercup whispered.
"What was that?" the Prince said.
"What was that?" Westley said.