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leader of this whole expedition was you, and if you were Fezzik, you knew the
last thing in the world you could ever be was a leader. So Fezzik did what he
always did in a panic situation.
He bolted.
He just yelled and jumped for the door and slammed it open with his body,
never even bothering with the niceties of turning that pretty green handle,
and as the door gave behind his strength he kept right on running until he
came to the giant cage and there, inside and still, lay the man in black.
Fezzik stopped then, relieved greatly, because seeing that silent body meant
one thing: Inigo was right, and if Inigo was right, he couldn't be crazy, and
if he wasn't crazy, then Fezzik didn't have to lead anybody anywhere. And when
that thought reached his brain, Fezzik smiled.
Inigo, for his part, was startled at Fezzik's strange behavior. He saw no
reason for it whatsoever, and was about to call after Fezzik when he saw a
tiny green speckled spider scurrying down from the door handle, so he stepped
on it with his boot as he hurried to the cage.
Fezzik was already inside the place, kneeling over the body.
"Don't say it," Inigo said, entering.
Fezzik tried not to, but it was on his face. "Dead." Inigo examined the body.
He had seen a lot of corpses in his time. "Dead." Then he sat down miserably
on the floor and put his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth like
a baby, back and forth, back and forth and back.
It was too unfair. You expected unfairness if you breathed, but this went
beyond that. He, Inigo, no thinker, had thought hadn't he found the man in
black? He, Inigo, frightened of beasts and crawlers and anything that stung,
had brought them down the Zoo unharmed. He had said good-by to caution and
stretched himself far beyond any boundaries he ever dreamed he possessed. And
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now, after such effort, after being reunited with Fezzik on this day of days
for this one purpose, to find the man to help him find a plan to help him
revenge his dead Domingo gone. All was gone. Hope? Gone. Future? Gone. All the
driving forces of his life. Gone. Snuffed out. Beaten. Dead.
"I am Inigo Montoya, the son of Domingo Montoya, and I do not accept it."
He sprang to his feet, started up the underground stairs, stopping only long
enough to snap commands.
"Come, come along. Bring the body." He searched through his pockets for a
moment, but they were empty, from the brandy. "Have you got any money,
Fezzik?"
"Some. They pay well on the Brute Squad." "Well I just hope it's enough to buy
a miracle, that's all."
When the knocking started on his hut door, Max almost didn't answer it. "Go
away," he almost said, because lately it was only kids come to mock him.
Except this was a little past the time for kids being up it was almost
midnight and besides, the knocking was both loud and, at the same time,
rat-a-tatty, as if the brain was saying to the fist, "Hurry it up; I
want to see a little action."
So Max opened the door a peek's worth. "I don't know you."
"Aren't you Miracle Max that worked all those years for the King?" this skinny
guy said.
"I got fired, didn't you hear? That's a painful subject, you shouldn't have
brought it up, good night, next time learn a little manners," and he closed
the hut door.
Rat-a-tat rat-a-
tatt.
"Get away, I'm telling you, or I call the Brute Squad."
"I'm on the Brute Squad," this other voice said from outside the door, a big
deep voice you wanted to stay friendly with.
"We need a miracle; it's very important," the skinny guy said from outside.
"I'm retired," Max said, "anyway, you wouldn't want someone the King got rid
of, would
you? I might kill whoever you want me to miracle."
"He's already dead," the skinny guy said.
"He is, huh?" Max said, a little interest in his voice now. He opened the door
a peek's worth again. "I'm good at dead."
"Please," the skinny guy said.
"Bring him in. I'm making no promises," Miracle Max answered after some
thought.
This huge guy and this skinny guy brought in this big guy and put him on the
hut floor.
Max poked the corpse. "Not so stiff as some," he said.
The skinny guy said, "We have money."
"Then go get some great genius specialist, why don't you? Why waste time
messing around with me, a guy who the King fired." It almost killed him when
it happened. For the first two years, he wished it had. His teeth fell out
from gnashing; he pulled the few loyal tufts from his scalp in wild anger.
"You're the only miracle man left alive in Florin," the skinny guy said.
"Oh, so that's why you come to me? One of you said, 'What'll we do with this
corpse?'
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