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“Another rich man? Yes, and he left you for a richer woman.”

“No. Poor. Poor and it killed him.”Advertisement

“Were you sorry? Did you feel pain? Admit that you felt nothing—”

“Do not mock my grief! I died that day.”

The Armada began to fire signal cannons. The explosions echoed through the mountains. The man in black stared as the ships began to change formation.

And while he was watching the ships, Buttercup shoved him with all her strength remaining.

For a moment, the man in black teetered at the ravine edge. His arms spun like windmills fighting for balance. They swung and gripped the air and then he began his slide.

Down went the man in black.

Stumbling and torn and reaching out to stop his descent, but the ravine was too steep, and nothing could be done.

Down, down.

Rolling over rocks, spinning, out of all control.

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Buttercup stared at what she had done.

Finally he rested far below her, silent and without motion. “You can die too for all I care,” she said, and then she turned away.

Words followed her. Whispered from far, weak and warm and familiar. “As… you… wish…”

Dawn in the mountains. Buttercup turned back to the source of the sound and stared down as, in first light, the man in black struggled to remove his mask.

“Oh, my sweet Westley,” Buttercup said. “What have I done to you now?”

From the bottom of the ravine, there came only silence.

Buttercup hesitated not a moment. Down she went after him, keeping her feet as best she could, and as she began, she thought she heard him crying out to her over and over, but she could not make sense of his words, because inside her now there was the thunder of walls crumbling, and that was noise enough.

Besides, her balance quickly was gone and the ravine had her. She fell fast and she fell hard, but what did that matter, since she would have gladly dropped a thousand feet onto a bed of nails if Westley had been waiting at the bottom.

Down, down.

Tossed and spinning, crashing, torn, out of all control, she rolled and twisted and plunged, cartwheeling toward what was left of her beloved…

From his position at the point of the Armada, Prince Humperdinck stared up at the Cliffs of Insanity. This was just like any other hunt. He made himself think away the quarry. It did not matter if you were after an antelope or a bride-to-be; the procedures held. You gathered evidence. Then you acted. You studied, then you performed. If you studied too little, the chances were strong that your actions would also be too late. You had to take time. And so, frozen in thought, he continued to stare up the sheer face of the Cliffs.

Obviously, someone had recently climbed them. There were foot scratchings all the way up a straight line, which meant, most certainly, a rope, an arm-over-arm climb up a thousand-foot rope with occasional foot kicks for balance. To make such a climb required both strength and planning, so the Prince made those marks in his brain: my enemy is strong; my enemy is not impulsive.

Now his eyes reached a point perhaps three hundred feet from the top. Here it began to get interesting. Now the foot scratchings were deeper, more frequent, and they followed no direct ascending line. Either someone left the rope three hundred feet from the top intentionally, which made no sense, or the rope was cut while that someone was still three hundred feet from safety. For clearly, this last part of the climb was made up the rock face itself. But who had such talent? And why had he been called to exercise it at such a deadly time, seven hundred feet above disaster?

“I must examine the tops of the Cliffs of Insanity,” the Prince said, without bothering to turn.

From behind him, Count Rugen only said, “Done,” and awaited further instructions. pqdm.com