The old prophets have said: monsters war with monsters, and the abyss is a living mirror. We are frightened by realities and potentialities: what terrifies us more than the sword or the burning brand is the thought of the great darkness within the soul.

The road to Hell is paved with kind words, simple truths, and the best of human intentions. But it is paved--lovingly, carefully, and well. The road to the heavens is crooked and grey; oft lost in the darkness, it is treacherous and steep.

There is one man who will offer you his hand and guide you up the twists and turns, if only you will be his. He has no true name but a title: Lucifer, Bearer of Light.

-

Seifer was getting up.

Unsteadily--so unsteadily--he got to his feet, swaying as Rinoa had swayed when--

(When she wasn't quite in control of herself.)

Quistis slipped her chain whip from its spot at her side, holding it ready. Seifer put one hand out to the wall, the other to his forehead--and grimaced, staring at the blood that now dotted his palm, seeping through the bandage.

"Are you all right?" Quistis asked carefully.

Seifer glanced over, biting off a curse. "Do I look all right?"

"You're standing, at least," Quistis noted.

"Excellent deduction." Seifer lowered his arms--still keeping them rather spread for balance. "What the hell is all this noise?"

Quistis shook her head. the resonance was still increasing--it was becoming harder and harder to speak over it. "I don't know," she returned. "Some kind of a resonance."

"Oh, is that all." Seifer took a step forward, nearly unbalancing himself. He stumbled back, putting his hands out to the wall again. "You don't think this is maybe one of those nodes of disturbance Leonhart was talking about?"

Quistis paused at that, stretching all her senses to the maximum. "...this doesn't feel anything like Time Compression," she said warily.

"You were in Time Compression, Instructor. You know what it feels like from the outside?"

"Like this?" she guessed.

"Like this." Seifer pushed himself away from the wall again, staring upward at the remnants of the walkway. "Somewhere in the Pillar, time is compressing."

"Why?"

Seifer glanced in her direction, glaring. "Do I look like Dr. Odine?" he demanded. "Hell should I know?"

Quistis bit off a retort--it would do no good to start arguing, now. "...never mind. We should try to get out of here. It's likely it's not safe--"

Seifer had a caustic comeback at the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it. "Yeah. Sounds like a good plan. Any idea how to work it?"

Quistis turned, walking carefully back to the pile of scree she had landed in and feeling the wall. "It's terribly slick," she said. "I'm not sure we could climb out, and using magic is out of the question. It doesn't look as if this cave here connects to any other sort of tunnel, and I'm not sure where Maiser's gone."

Seifer shrugged. "So, we climb it."

"Seifer--"

"What?" Seifer gestured impatiently. "Everything else is impossible, and that's just hard. Seems like the obvious choice." Seifer approached--and Quistis took a step back, instinctively. He graced her with a tired glare, and looked up the wall. "There's a ledge up there, and it looks like it slopes up beyond that. We can probably manage it."

Quistis looked up. The ledge was too high to reach without help--but, she reasoned, there were two of them. "Right. Who's going?"

Seifer snorted. "Think you can lift me up there?"

Quistis considered that for a moment. "...I'll go."

"Let's go, then." Without preamble Seifer stepped forward, planting both hands on her hips and heaving her upward with all the force he could muster. Quistis gained a handhold on the ledge, scrambling onto it in a somewhat less-than-dignified manner.

Finding something to brace herself against, she looped her chain whip and lowered it down. Seifer grabbed,it, pulling himself up as well as he could. Quistis winced as she hauled up on it--Seifer was rather heavier than he looked.

"So," she said, fighting to get him up onto the ledge. "What was that device you were looking at?"

Seifer had one hand on the ledge, and was making a fair show of pulling himself up. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said.

"Why not?" Quistis turned to the slope, looking for an easy path up. "Given some of the things I've seen, it takes quite a bit to stretch the bounds of credibility."

"Then I suppose you're hardly going to blink when I tell you it was a draw-store device...."

"It wouldn't be so out-of place here," Quistis said.

"Containing Griever," Seifer finished.

And Quistis very nearly fell of the ledge.