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 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.”
Inigo quickly tied it around a rock, dropped it over. The man in black grabbed hold, hung suspended alone in space. Inigo pulled. In a moment, the man in black was beside him.
“Thank you,” the man in black said, and he sank down on the rock.
Inigo sat alongside him. “We’ll wait until you’re ready,” he said.
The man in black breathed deeply. “Again, thank you.”
“Why have you followed us?”
“You carry baggage of much value.”
“We have no intention of selling,” Inigo said.
“That is your business.”
“And yours?”
The man in black made no reply.
Inigo stood and walked away, surveying the terrain over which they would battle. It was a splendid plateau, really, filled with trees for dodging around and roots for tripping over and small rocks for losing your balance on and boulders for leaping off if you could climb on them fast enough, and bathing everything, the entire spot, moonlight. One could not ask for a more suitable testing ground for a duel, Inigo decided. It had everything, including the marvelous Cliffs at one end, beyond which was the wonderful thousand-foot drop, always something to bear in mind when one was planning tactics. It was perfect. The place was perfect.
Provided the man in black could fence.
Really fence.
Inigo did then what he always did before a duel: he took the great sword from its scabbard and touched the side of the blade to his face two times, once along one scar, once along the other.
Then he examined the man in black, A fine sailor, yes; a mighty climber, no question; courageous, without a doubt.
But could he fence?
Really fence?
Please, Inigo thought. It has been so long since I have been tested, let this man test me. Let him be a glorious swordsman. Let him be both quick and fast, smart and strong. Give him a matchless mind for tactics, a background the equal of mine. Please, please, it’s been so long: let—him—be—a—master!
“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.”
“But one of us must,” Inigo said. “Begin.”
And so saying he took the six-fingered sword.
And put it into his left hand.
He had begun all his duels left-handed lately. It was good practice for him, and although he was the only living wizard in the world with his regular hand, the right, still, he was more than worthy with his left. Perhaps thirty men alive were his equal when he used his left. Perhaps as many as fifty; perhaps as few as ten.
