Prince Humperdinck simply had no time. There seemed to be not one decision in all of Florin that one way or another didn’t eventually come heavily to rest upon his shoulders. Not only was he getting married, his country was having its five hundredth anniversary. Not only was he noodling around in his mind the best ways to get a war going, he also had to constantly have affection shining from his eyes. Every detail had to be met, and met correctly.
His father was just no help at all, refusing either to expire or stop mumbling (you thought his father was dead but that was in the fake-out, don’t forget—Morgenstern was just edging into the nightmare sequence, so don’t be confused) and start making sense. Queen Bella simply hovered around him, translating here and there, and it was with a shock that Prince Humperdinck realized, just twelve days before his wedding day, that he had neglected to set in motion the crucial Guilder section of his plan, so he called Yellin to the castle late one night.
Yellin was Chief of All Enforcement in Florin City, a job he had inherited from his father. (The albino keeper at the Zoo was Yellin’s first cousin, and together they formed the only pair of nonnobles the Prince could come close to trusting.)
“Your Highness,” Yellin said. He was small, but crafty, with darting eyes and slippery hands.
Prince Humperdinck came out from behind his desk. He moved close to Yellin and looked carefully around before saying, softly, “I have heard, from unimpeachable sources, that many men of Guilder have, of late, begun to infiltrate our Thieves Quarter. They are disguised as Florinese, and I am worried.”
“I have heard nothing of such a thing,” Yellin said.
“A prince has spies everywhere.”
“I understand,” said Yellin. “And you think, since the evidence points that they tried to kidnap your fiancée once, such a thing might happen again?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“I’ll close off the Thieves Quarter then,” Yellin said. “No one will enter and no one will leave.”
“Not good enough,” said the Prince. “I want the Thieves Quarter emptied and every villain jailed until I am safely on my honeymoon.” Yellin did not nod quickly enough, so the Prince said, “State your problem.”
“My men are not always too happy at the thought of entering the Thieves Quarter. Many of the thieves resist change.”
“Root them out. Form a brute squad. But get it done.”
“It takes at least a week to get a decent brute squad going,” Yellin said. “But that is time enough.” He bowed, and started to leave.
And that was when the scream began.
Yellin had heard many things in his life, but nothing quite so eerie as this: he was a brave man, but this sound frightened him. It was not human, but he could not guess the throat of the beast it came from. (It was actually a wild dog, on the first level of the Zoo, but no wild dog had ever shrieked like that before. But then, no wild dog had ever been put in the Machine.)
The sound grew in anguish, and it filled the night sky as it spread across the castle grounds, over the walls, even into the Great Square beyond.
It would not stop. It simply hung now below the sky, an audible reminder of the existence of agony. In the Great Square, half a dozen children screamed back at the night, trying to blot out the sound. Some wept, some only ran for home.
Then it began to lessen in volume. Now it was hard to hear in the Great Square, now it was gone. Now it was hard to hear on the castle walls, now it was gone from the castle walls. It shrunk across the grounds toward the first level of the Zoo of Death, where Count Rugen sat fiddling with some knobs. The wild dog died. Count Rugen rose, and it was all he could do to bury his own shriek of triumph.
He left the Zoo and ran toward Prince Humperdinck’s chambers. Yellin was just going when the Count got there. The Prince was seated now, behind his desk. When Yellin was gone and they were alone, the Count bowed to his majesty: “The Machine,” he said at last, “works.”
Prince Humperdinck took a while before answering. It was a ticklish situation, granted he was the boss, the Count merely an underling, still, no one in all Florin had Rugen’s skills. As an inventor, he had, obviously, at last, rid the Machine of all defects. As an architect, he had been crucial in the safety factors involved in the Zoo of Death, and it had undeniably been Rugen who had arranged for the only survivable entrance being the underground fifth level one. He was also supportive to the Prince in all endeavors of hunting and battle, and you didn’t give a follower like that a quick “Get away, boy, you bother me.” So the prince indeed took a while.
“Look, Ty,” he said finally. “I’m just thrilled you smoothed all the bugs out of the Machine; I never for a minute doubted you’d get it right eventually. And I’m really anxious as can be to see it working. But how can I put this? I can’t keep my head above water one minute to the next: it’s not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what’s-her-name, I’ve got to decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone’s still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I’ve got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I’ve got to get the war going once that’s all happened, and all this is stuff I’ve got to do myself. Here’s what it all comes down to: I’m just swamped, Ty. So how about if you go to work on Westley and tell me how it goes, and when I get the time, I’ll come watch and I’m sure it’ll be just wonderful, but for now, what I’d like is a little breathing room, no hard feelings?”
Count Rugen smiled. “None.” And there weren’t any. He always felt better when he could dole out pain alone. You could concentrate much more deeply when you were alone with agony.
“I knew you’d understand, Ty.”
There was a knock on the door and Buttercup stuck her head in. “Any news?” she said.
The Prince smiled at her and sadly shook his head. “Honey, I promised to tell you the second I hear a thing.”
“It’s only twelve days, though.”
“Plenty of time, dulcet darling, now don’t worry yourself.”
“I’ll leave you,” Buttercup said.
“I was going too,” the Count said. “May I walk you to your quarters?”
Buttercup nodded, and down the corridors they wandered till they reached her suite. “Good night,” Buttercup said quickly; ever since that day he had first come to her father’s farm, she had always been afraid whenever the Count came near.
“I’m sure he’ll come,” the Count said; he was privy to all the Prince’s plans, and Buttercup was well aware of this. “I don’t know your fellow well, but he impressed me greatly. Any man who can find his way through the Fire Swamp can find his way to Florin Castle before your wedding day.”
Buttercup nodded.
“He seemed so strong, so remarkably powerful,” the Count went on, his voice warm and lulling. “I only wondered if he possessed true sensitivity, as some men of great might, as you know, do not. For example, I wonder: is he capable of tears?”
“Westley would never cry,” Buttercup answered, opening her chamber door. “Except for the death of a loved one.” And with that she closed the Count away and, alone, went to her bed and knelt. Westley, she thought then. Do come please; I have begged you in my thoughts now these many weeks and still no word. Back when we were on the farm, I thought I loved you, but that was not love. When I saw your face behind the mask on the ravine floor, I thought I loved you, but that was again nothing more than deep infatuation. Beloved: I think I love you now, and I pray you only give me the chance to spend my life in constant proving. I could spend my life in the Fire Swamp and sing from morn till night if you were by me. I could spend eternity sinking down through Snow Sand if my hand held your hand. My preference would be to last eternity with you beside me on a cloud, but hell would also be a lark if Westley was with me. . . .
She went on that way, silent hour after silent hour; she had done nothing else for thirty-eight evenings now, and each time, her ardor deepened, her thoughts became more pure. Westley. Westley. Flying across the seven seas to claim her.
For his part, and quite without knowing, Westley was spending his evenings in much the same fashion. After the torture was done, when the albino had finished tending his slashes or burns or breaks, when he was alone in the giant cage, he sent his brain to Buttercup, and there it dwelled.
He understood her so well. In his mind, he realized that moment he left her on the farm when she swore love, certainly she meant it, but she was barely eighteen. What did she know of the depth of the heart? Then again, when he had removed his black mask and she had tumbled to him, surprise had been operating, stunned astonishment as much as emotion. But just as he knew that the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.
So when the Count appeared with the Machine, Westley was not particularly perturbed. As a matter of fact, he had no idea what the Count was bringing with him into the giant cage. As a matter of absolute fact, the Count was bringing nothing; it was the albino who was doing the actual work, making trip after trip with thing after thing.
That was what it really looked like to Westley: things. Little soft rimmed cups of various sizes and a wheel, most likely, and another object that could turn out to be either a lever or a stick; it was hard to tell.
“A good good evening to you,” the Count began.
He had never, to Westley’s memory, shown such excitement. Westley made a very weak nod in return. Actually, he felt about as well as ever, but it didn’t do to let that kind of news get around.
“Feeling a bit under the weather?” the Count asked.
Westley made another feeble nod.
The albino scurried in and out, bringing more things: wirelike extensions, stringy and endless.
“That will be all,” the Count said finally.
Nod.
Gone.
“This is the Machine,” the Count said when they were alone. “I’ve spent eleven years constructing it. As you can tell, I’m rather excited and proud.”
Westley managed an affirmative blink.
“I’ll be putting it together for a while.” And with that, he got busy.
Westley watched the construction with a good deal of interest and, logically enough, curiosity.
“You heard that scream a bit earlier on this evening?”
Another affirmative blink.
“That was a wild dog. This machine caused the sound.” It was a very complex job the Count was doing, but the six fingers on his right hand never for a moment seemed in doubt as to just what to do. “I’m very interested in pain,” the Count said, “as I’m sure you’ve gathered these past months. In an intellectual way, actually. I’ve written, of course, for the more learned journals on the subject. Articles mostly. At the present I’m engaged in writing a book. My book.The book, I hope. The definitive work on pain, at least as we know it now.”
Westley found the whole thing fascinating. He made a little groan.
“I think pain is the most underrated emotion available to us,” the Count said. “The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain. Pain has been with us always, and it always irritates me when people say ‘as important as life and death’ because the proper phrase, to my mind, should be, ‘as important as pain and death.’“ The Count fell silent for a time then, as he began and completed a series of complex adjustments. “One of my theories,” he said somewhat later, “is that pain involves anticipation. Nothing original, I admit, but I’m going to demonstrate to you what I mean: I will not, underlinenot , use the Machine on you this evening. I could. It’s ready and tested. But instead I will simply erect it and leave it beside you, for you to stare at the next twenty-four hours, wondering just what it is and how it works and can it really be as dreadful as all that.” He tightened some things here, loosened some more over there, tugged and patted and shaped.
The Machine looked so silly Westley was tempted to giggle. Instead, he groaned again.
“I’ll leave you to your imagination, then,” the Count said, and he looked at Westley. “But I want you to know one thing before tomorrow night happens to you, and I mean it: you are the strongest, the most brilliant and brave, the most altogether worthy creature it has ever been my privilege to meet, and I feel almost sad that, for the purposes of my book and future pain scholars, I must destroy you.”
“Thank . . . you . . .” Westley breathed softly.
The Count went to the cage door and said over his shoulder, “And you can stop all your performing about how weak and beaten you are; you haven’t fooled me for a month. You’re practically as strong now as on the day you entered the Fire Swamp. I know your secret, if that’s any consolation to you.”
“. . . secret?” Hushed, strained.
“You’ve been taking your brain away,”the Count cried. “You haven’t felt the least discomfort in all these months. You raise your eyes and drop your eyelids and then you’re off, probably with —I don’t know—her, most likely. Good night now. Try and sleep. I doubt you’ll be able to. Anticipation, remember?” With a wave, he mounted the underground stairs.
Westley could feel the sudden pressure of his heart.
Soon the albino came, knelt by Westley’s ear. Whispered: “I’ve been watching you all these days. You deserve better than what’s coming. I’m needed. No one else feeds the beasts as I do. I’m safe. They won’t hurt me. I’ll kill you if you’d like. That would foil them. I’ve got some good poison. I beg you. I’ve seen the Machine. I was there when the wild dog screamed. Please let me kill you. You’ll thank me, I swear.”
“I must live.”
Whispered: “But—”
Interruption: “They will not reach me. I am all right. I am fine. I am alive, and I will stay that way.” He said the words loud, and he said them with passion. But for the first time in a long time, there was terror. . . .