"All aboard,' the Trabian said.

With that the Shumi began to climb. It was a least a thousand feet and he was carrying the three, but he was not worried. When it came to power, nothing worried him. When it came to reading, he got knots in the middle of his stomach, and when it came to writing, he broke out in a cold sweat, and when addition was mentioned or, worse, long division, he always changed the subject right away.

But strength had never been his enemy. He could take the kick of a horse on his chest and not fall backward. He could take a hundred-pound flour sack between his legs and scissor it open without thinking. He had once held a large chocobo aloft using only the muscles in his back.

But his real might lay in his arms. There had never, not in a thousand years, been arms to match Ward's. The arms were not only gargantuan and totally obedient and surprisingly quick, but they were also, and this is why he never worried, tireless. If you gave him an axe and told him to chop down a forest, his legs might give out from having to support so much weight for so long, or the axe might shatter from the punishment of killing so many trees, but Ward's arms would be as fresh tomorrow as today.

And so, even with the Trabian on his next and the price around his shoulders and the Centrian at his waist, Ward did not feel in the least bit put upon. He was actually quite happy, because it was only when he was requested to use his might that he felt he wasn't a bother to everybody.

Up he climbed, arm over arm, arm over arm, two hundred feet now above the water, eight hundred feet now to go.

More then any of them, the Trabian was afraid of heights. All 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 next of the giant. Or should have been most difficult.

But he would not allow it, nope not him.

From the beginning, when as a child he realized his humped body would never conquer worlds, so he relied on his mind. He trained it, fought it, and brought it to heal. 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 Trabian flogged his mind to find the 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 lightening toward the Cliffs. He could not have been more then a quarter-mile from them now.

"Faster!" the Trabian commanded.

"I'm sorry," The Shumi answered meekly. "I thought I was going faster."

"Lazy, lazy," spurred the Trabian.

"I'll never improve," the Shumi answered, but his arms began to move faster then before. "I cannot see too well because your legs are locked around my face, not that I mind too much," he went on, "so could you tell me please if we are halfway yet?"

"A little over, I should think," said the Centrian from his position around the giant's waist. "You're doing wonderfully, Ward."

"Thank you," said the giant.

"And he is closing on the Cliffs," added the Centrian.

No one had to ask who "he" was.

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

"He's left his boat behind," the Centrian said. "He's jumped onto our rope. He's starting up after us."

"I can feel him," Ward said. "His body weight on the rope."

"He'll never catch up!" the Trabian cried. "Inconceivable!"

"You keep using that word!" the Centrian snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does."

"How fast is he climbing?" Ward asked.

"I'm frightened," was the Centrian's reply.

The Trabian 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 strong!" the Trabian shouted. "I thought you were this great mighty thing and yet he gains."

"I'm carrying three people," Ward explained. "He has only himself and-"

"Excuses are the refuge of cowards," The Trabian 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, Squall wasn't sure what he wanted to happen. Except this much he knew; he didn't want to go though anything like it again.

"Fly, Ward!" the Trabian screamed. "A hundred feet to go."

Ward 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 Centrian said.

"Halfway to doom is where he is," the Trabian said. "We're fifty feet from safety, and once we're there and I untie the rope …" He allowed himself to laugh.

Forty feet

Ward pulled.

Twenty.

Ten.

It was over. Ward had done it. They had reached the top of the Cliffs, and first the Trabian jumped off and then the Shumi removed the Price, and as the Centrian untied himself, he looked back over the Cliffs.

The man in black was no more then three hundred feet away.

"It seems a shame," the Shumi said, looking down alongside the Centrian. "Such a climber deserves better than-"

The Trabian had untied the rope from its knots around an oak. The rope seemed almost alive, the greatest of all water serpents heading at last for home. It whipped across the cliff tops, spiralled into the moonlit Channel.

----o----o----o----o----o----

Oh! Another chapter! And it only took me three days of kicking my own butt to get it done. It's kind of short, but I want to cut it there. –Waves down the side of the cliffs- Bye, bye man in black. From that high up hitting water is like hitting stone.