Legends of Belariath
Helliss
The Pit
Zirrit Nissid watched the girl as she desperately struggled for her life, idly puffing away on a black-papered cigarette as he stared down into the pit. It was a good twelve feet deep, sheer walls on all sides, only about five feet across, and Helliss, prised pupil of the Brotherhood and Knight to their cause, stood in its center... taut, athletic body caked in sand, blood and sweat as she fiercely fought off her ‘opponents’. Three corpses were in that pit with her... three beaten, battered bodies that attacked her with all the abandon and ferocity of animals gone mad, the vicious slashes of her sword and bludgeons of her shield neither stunning nor phasing them... repelling them only for the split seconds needed to strike out at another.
“Explain to me again why we’re letting her go through with this.” He’d ask the tall, lean man next to him... one Korba Victrolos, Moriel as well, High Priest to Xin, no less- the heretic Thilari of the Moriel’s pantheon of Gods who represents change and rebellion... both aspects of life that the standard Kirva worshipper would typically make an effort to avoid. He’d glance to Zirrit, a narrow, vaguely impatient gaze... as if to ask what he were doing here at all.
“She wishes it.”
Zirrit would roll his eyes at that, giving his head a shake... glancing back down into the pit to watch the young human, with an adorably savage cry, bash out one of the vicious corpses jaw. “She wishes it because you ‘trained’ her to wish it.” Said tersely, glancing across the pit to the three figures standing across from them, Goblins all... two, one male, one female, were decrepitly old, the third seeming only a boy... eighteen at the most. The three of them stared down into that pit intently, grinning and chattering amongst themselves, making occasional sharp gestures with their hands. They were the pilots of the human girl’s opponents, Priests of Kkla Sin all... the ‘Godess’ of Goblin Kind. She had served as an indispensible ally to their cause since the very inception of the Brotherhood... one of the three religious figures around whom their organization was built so many centuries ago, whose ends they ‘apparently’ served. Zirrit, of course, was only interested in serving his own ends.
“Her Mother wished it as well. Do we not owe it to her, for her faithful service?”
A growl from Zirrit. Korba was always fucking around, talking in circles... he spent too much time in this bloody dungeon of his pumping out personnel... never seemed to take into account that some had double lives to lead. Already an inquisitor in the New Empire’s secretive, almost experimental security and intelligence service, he was rising in the ranks there quickly... putting himself in a choice position to play both sides. He had no time to waste on Korba’s fancies... he’d come only in the hopes of preventing a mistake. The girl was young, the girl was devout, the girl was beautiful. Highly trained, highly conditioned, she’d be of such ‘use’ as a Knight in Nanthalion! And practical considerations aside, he had to admit to himself: he wanted her. “And we trained her Mother for that as well! No, not we... ~you~! You get decide how and what these Knights think, Korba... so change her mind!”
“And why, Zirrit, would I do that...?”
A shrill outcry from the pit would draw Zirrits gaze, him wincing to see the brutal nails of one of the corpses dig –deep- into the human girls shoulder. Moments later she was lopping off the offending arm with an animal scream and a sweep of her sword, and Zirrit would relax, turning his attentions back to Korba. “Because the trial can take years... can take decades... and that’s if they even make it..! She’s a ‘human’, Korba... she’s got four more decades of use in her at the very best. She’s trained, conditioned and ready to be used ‘now’... but the trial will take all of that away! We’d be putting seventeen years effort and a few thousand Mehrial to waste, all in the hopes that she MIGHT find her way back to us a Paladin... and who knows when! The Gods don’t need more people, Korba... ‘we’ do!”
Korba still intently watched Helliss struggle in the pit... watched her utterly fell one of the corpses, savagely cleave another in half, only to press in, panting and exhausted, on the third. Helliss. When her mother had approached him and made the tearful confession she was pregnant, he had punished her... thoroughly. He could not help but regret that action now. Having trained and indoctrinated her from the moment weaning ended, he had forged something special in Helliss... something of which he could be proud. Zirrit’s voice in his ear was an annoying intrusion... he’d be able to tone it out completely if he didn’t partially agree. The trial to become a Paladin of the Three, of those powerful forces whom the Brotherhood served, was no test of physical might... no contest of the mind. It was a spiritual matter... the stripping of all memories of the Brotherhood, of her long years spent in training... the stripping of her entire life, in fact, leaving her without even a name to call herself by. If, in spite of this, through true religious connection she finds her way back to the Faith, she would be deemed worthy, and become a Paladin of the Three.
“You seem to imply it is my soul decision to make. You forget I answer to a much higher power.”
Xin, J’kistelor, Kkla Sin... Rebellion, Chaos, Death. Deities of three very different peoples, they shared one common cause: combating the stagnation of Ishtar... A Goddess who’s religion, now with the support of the new empire, was spreading resurrection, contraception, and blinding lust throughout the mortal realm. No birth, no death, no change... just an endless sexual torpor. This was the world the Brotherhood combated, the world they could not allow.
Zirrit would shake his head, finishing his smoke, tossing it to the obsidian floor and crushing it out beneath his boot. “It’s a waste, Korba....” and he’d look down into the pit once more, in which the girl knelt, breathing hard, tip of her sword buried in the sand... the three corpses still and lifeless once more around her. “..it’s a damned waste.” And Zirrit would turn, making his way to the platform that would lift him out of the earth’s bowels.
“Perhaps, Zirrit.” Korba would answer as the other Moriel left, before he was making his way to the very edge of that pit. Helliss, wild white-blond hair matted with sweat and blood, would look up to him... gorgeous Jade eyes big and bright... a fanatic grin spreading across her face as she gasped in a soprano half-rasp. “Master...!”
The word had Korba smiling slyly... ahh, exquisite girl. He’d feel a pang of regret in his long-since frozen heart at the knowledge this would be the last time he watched her train. “Sweet Helliss. Again?”
The girl would struggle her way to her feet, stagger once, before tossing her hair out of her eyes and staring up into him, loosing a breathy, exultant, fanatical “YES!”
A wide, satisfied smile would spread across his face. No. Helliss would not fail. He would see her again. He’d glance up to the three Goblins, who had seemed to be preparing to depart, and would offer them a single nod. With crooked grins, they’d bow low... and those corpses would rise once again.