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More than any of them, the Sicilian was afraid of heights. All of his nightmares, and they were never far from him when he slept, dealt with falling. So this terrifying ascension was most difficult for him, perched as he was on the neck of the giant. Or should have been most difficult.

But he would not allow it.Advertisement

From the beginning, when as a child he realized his humped body would never conquer worlds, he relied on his mind. He trained it, fought it, brought it to heel. So now, three hundred feet in the night and rising higher, while he should have been trembling, he was not.

Instead he was thinking of the man in black.

There was no way anyone could have been quick enough to follow them. And yet from some devil’s world that billowing black sail had appeared. How? How? The Sicilian flogged his mind to find an answer, but he found only failure. In wild frustration he took a deep breath and, in spite of his terrible fears, he looked back down toward the dark water.

The man in black was still there, sailing like lightning toward the Cliffs. He could not have been more than a quarter-mile from them now.

“Faster!” the Sicilian commanded.

“I’m sorry,” the Turk answered meekly. “I thought I was going faster.”

“Lazy, lazy,” spurred the Sicilian.

“I’ll never improve,” the Turk answered, but his arms began to move faster than before. “I cannot see too well because your feet are locked around my face,” he went on, “so could you tell me please if we’re halfway yet?”

“A little over, I should think,” said the Spaniard from his position around the giant’s waist. “You’re doing wonderfully, Fezzik.”

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“Thank you,” said the giant.

“And he’s closing on the Cliffs,” added the Spaniard.

No one had to ask who “he” was.

Six hundred feet now. The arms continued to pull, over and over. Six hundred and twenty feet. Six hundred and fifty. Now faster than ever. Seven hundred.

“He’s left his boat behind,” the Spaniard said. “He’s jumped onto our rope. He’s starting up after us.”

“I can feel him,” Fezzik said. “His body weight on the rope.”

“He’ll never catch up!” the Sicilian cried. “Inconceivable!”

“You keep using that word!” the Spaniard snapped. “I don’t think it means what you think it does.”

“How fast is he at climbing?” Fezzik said.

“I’m frightened” was the Spaniard’s reply.

The Sicilian gathered his courage again and looked down.

The man in black seemed almost to be flying. Already he had cut their lead a hundred feet. Perhaps more.

“I thought you were supposed to be so strong!” the Sicilian shouted. “I thought you were this great mighty thing and yet he gains.”

“I’m carrying three people,” Fezzik explained. “He has only himself and—”

“Excuses are the refuge of cowards,” the Sicilian interrupted. He looked down again. The man in black had gained another hundred feet. He looked up now. The cliff tops were beginning to come into view. Perhaps a hundred and fifty feet more and they were safe.

Tied hand and foot, sick with fear, Buttercup wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen. Except this much she knew: she didn’t want to go through anything like it again.

“Fly, Fezzik!” the Sicilian screamed. “A hundred feet to go.”

Fezzik flew. He cleared his mind of everything but ropes and arms and fingers, and his arms pulled and his fingers gripped and the rope held taut and—

“He’s over halfway,” the Spaniard said. pqdm.com