Her Master's Voice

Posted on Thu Jun 26th, 2025 @ 1:17pm by Kelderesh jai Nektus & Axion

2,045 words; about a 10 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VII: Uprooted
Location: Cult of Axion Enclave, Unknown System
Timeline: After incident on Öetrago

The chamber was not built - it had been shaped. Hewn from a single faultless piece of obsidian-like stone, its interior shimmered faintly with dark, oily reflections of the nine altar-torches suspended above, their flames blue-black, guttering with an unnatural cold heat. Slender threads of incense trailed from each corner, spiralling in perfect geometries that defied air currents, forming an invisible cage of sacred breath. At the far end of the sanctum, a monolithic relief of the Dark Master’s face had been etched into the wall, his features impossibly symmetrical, lips parted in divine understanding, eyes closed as if drinking in the secrets of the void itself.

The girl stood on the threshold, her elongated Muun features half-lit by the sacred firelight, her long-fingered hands clasped tight around the newly-forged curved hilt of her first lightsaber. Its metal still warm from the forges below. She had not ignited its fiery-orange blade yet. That moment was to be saved for when the Master called her name.

She was tall and willowy, even for one of her kind, with skin the hue of antique porcelain veined faintly with a dusk-lavender undertone. Her cheekbones sat high beneath dark, obsidian eyes that seemed too wide and unblinking for comfort. Her scalp was hairless, polished and adorned with spiralling geometric tattoos in navy blue - a mark of her sacred dedication. She wore vestments she deemed worthy of a novitiate; layered black and bronze robes that shimmered faintly with alchemical threadwork, woven in reverence by the elderly cloth-priests of the Pale Loom, but with a low cut that intentionally accentuated her femininity. A thin silver diadem, set with a single shard of obsidian glass, rested across her brow, such as it was.

Her thoughts, sharpened by the sacrificial fast of the last three days, fluttered around her like distant birds returning to nest. My parents gave everything. I will be worthy. He sees me.

She knew not to speak - not in His presence.

Axion had not yet entered, but already his absence filled the space more fully than any presence she had known before the Cult. She had been born to power, raised in the vaulted towers of Muunilinst’s banking capital, the child of a prominent member of the New InterGalactic Banking Clan and the wealthy female scion of a wealthy investment cabal. But that power had been crude, material - ultimately meaningless. The moment her parents had discovered her potential, they had wept with joy and sent her into the beloved Cult's dark bosom to begin her transformation, as they continued their mundane financial endeavours in the name of their divine lord.

Now, she could feel the Dark Master approaching. A ripple of ecstatic terror rolled through her long spine. The floor, she thought, trembled slightly - not in response to his steps, but as if eager to receive them, and she heard a whisper. It was not from a throat, but from the air itself.

"Your brother has returned to the Void," said the voice, so Human, effortless and charming, in spite of the sad subject and esoteric majesty of the one who was speaking. "And, yet, the Void is unchanged. It remains beautiful. Hungering. Perfect."

From the shadows behind the altar, He emerged.

Behind the young Muun, where he had been quietly meditating on a silken pillow in anticipation of his Lord's arrival, the talon-like Kaleesh hands of Kelderesh unfurled and he brought himself upwards, piercing the thin film of incense smoke that surrounded him.

"Master," his deep but raspy voice proclaimed as he bowed low, "Word of Voq's demise reached us just a short time ago. It is not within your children's powers to resist death's grasp. You alone remain eternal. You alone are beyond death and the Force itself."

The young cultist silently watched Kelderesh's affirmation of the Master's divine inevitability. As the leader of this enclave and her assigned hierophant of Axion's will, it was his right to speak to the great one before all others. He himself was a powerful warrior and spiritualist and was the one who had determined she was ready to take this next step in her journey: receiving His blessing.

Axion did not walk so much as glide; his booted feet did not seem to touch the ground, not even the spiralling motes of incense were stirred by his movement into the chamber. His ornate robes seemed to shimmer faintly with the fluid movement, refracting light in discordant ways. Some of it hung like a silhouette from his frame, whilst other portions clung to him tightly as he moved. As he stepped past the altar, a hand faintly traced across its surface, and it seemed to hiss and sizzle, as if it resented the merest touch of its creator.

"You always speak of death with such reverence, Kelderesh," Axion said smoothly, voice as warm and perfumed as the scented oils permeating the room. "It is an inspiration, how readily you read the gospel of unmaking... Tolmin Voq did not share your reverence, not truly. He was too loud - too certain. He was rooted in the detritus of his own selfhood. He confused the shape he had been given with the god he was meant to serve. Yet, in his end he has served his purpose. He was never meant to endure - only to open the wound."

The leader's gaze pinned Kelderesh with disarming intimacy, and the blue flames lit his knowing, cruel smile. "The Ithorian is broken open. Hollowed. The light that once blinded him from within now leaks out in smoke. If he is wise, he will prostrate himself before us in pieces, to be remade - or he will crumble, emptied and pathetic. Let us speak no more at this time of that minor distraction. Our purpose is unchanged, our hoard grows larger, my power swells."

His dark blue eyes, both irises and pupils, now fell upon the Muun girl. "And now you present her. New. Unwasted. Untouched by personality or ego. A vessel, not yet distracted by shape or noise. You have done well, Kelderesh. Where Tolmin Voq cracked beneath the weight of identity," he gestured to the young woman, "she has none to shatter."

The Kaleesh flicked his pale yellow eyes briefly to the young woman, before snapping them back to his master. It was hard to focus on anything else when His presence was in the room.

"Yes, I have observed much the same in her," he agreed, moving himself around the Muun and gesturing towards her, while keeping himself ever focussed on Axion, "This one has dedicated herself to your tenets, but does not lack her own will; showing resourcefulness and a desire to rise, but never forgetting that the power she earns is but an aspect of your own power."

He nodded slightly in reverence, before adding, "Of course, these are just a follower's observations and we seek your final clarity to determine if she is truly fit to receive such blessings."

He shot his palm out before the initiate, the thin wrappings around his hands gave glimpses of his crimson red skin that was rarely exposed to the world.

"Your new weapon," he demanded flatly, "I shall present it to the Master. He shall first inspect your craft before he considers you."

The Muun girl did not flinch as Kelderesh's clawed hand extended toward her. Her silence was not fear, but reverence, ritually honed and enforced. With slow, fluid grace, she raised the hilt from her chest with both hands and turned it flat, offering it across her palms.

The gently-curved weapon glinted with quiet potential, its casing dark and lacquered with etchings inlaid from alchemical gold. Even in dormancy, it pulsed with the suggestion of heat, like a relic freshly pulled from a forge.

The Kaleesh grasped the Muun's crafted weapon and tugged it away, giving it a brief inspection before taking two firm strides towards Axion and then kneeling down, raising up the hilt towards the dark master.

Axion watched with a gaze that seemed to peer through time. Slowly, he extended a hand and he claimed it. As the hilt left Kelderesh’s grasp and flew into Axion's, the temperature in the chamber seemed to shift. The blue-black flames of the altar-torches bent inward, as if bowing inwards toward the focal point of this singular gesture - an affectation of the Dark Master, perhaps, or the Force twisting around its true focal point. Even the incense trails wavered, coiling tightly before correcting their perfect spirals.

Axion held the lightsaber delicately between thumb and finger, turning it slightly so the curved contour caught the light.

"Such elegance," he murmured. "Not in form - form is empty - but in intention. This was not built, but offered. Not as a tool, but as a covenant." His eyes rose again to the initiate. "You understand, then, what this truly is? A blade is not for striking - it is for cutting away, for refining and perfecting." He stepped forward. "With this, you sever your birth in totality. Your name. Your will. Even your future. You are no longer the result of choice. You are mine, as you always were and will be in. And in that sacrifice, you will taste the sweet and terrible truth of creation and destruction, as I will it."

He raised the hilt between them.

"You shall now ignite your blade. Not to prove yourself, but to become less. To become real, finally." His voice softened, dark velvet across stone. "Tell me, child, what are you now?"

The girl's breath caught, not from hesitation but from the rapture of being addressed. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides. When she spoke, her voice was crystalline, quiet but certain.

"I am the hollow that waits to be filled." His eyes were cast down, unable to look upon the visage of her lord without fear of some unmaking, now his attention was truly cast upon her.

Axion smiled, an expression both insidious and disarming. "And Hollow you are."

With a small gesture, the blade landed back in the Muun's hands. A nervous second later, the rusted-red blade hissed to life, a deep shriek heralding the appearance of the plasma, followed by a low guttural humming sound. The symphony appeared to please Axion, bright white teeth bared in the low light of the enclave. Her knees trembled slightly beneath the weight of sanctification, and she almost choked as Axion placed an affectionate hand upon her slender cheek. A warmth rushed through her for a moment, before the Human turned back to Kelderesh.

"With the upstart children of herd and temple wallowing, their pale little pet clinging to his new leash, we may let them gnaw one another in the dark, their path winding away from ours," the Dark Master adjusted himself, stepping towards the Kaleesh. The subtle geometry of the room seemed to minorly realign around him, and the scent of incense even thickened in that moment. "Now, you must gather others. The work is never paused; the great song of our becoming is still being sung across the stars - my shards call to me still. Every moment they remain lost is a moment the galaxy delays its deliverance. Renew the search, and when the final shard is returned to my altar, and the wound of the cosmos torn bare for me to step through, you shall take your rightful place beneath my glory as master of the Unmade."

Kelderesh stood straight once more, his yellow eyes daring to peer out beneath his bony mask and examine Axion's form.

"I will commit every member of this enclave to the search," he rasped, "As well as reaching out to our brothers and sisters across the local sectors to focus our efforts. The shards have always been yours by right and we shall return them all to you."

He turned to the newly anointed Muun, who still stood in a daze of glory and gestured away.

"Quickly, send out word to everyone on assignment to return at once," his voice seemed to fill with more enthusiasm, spurned on by the transcendent one beside him, "Once more, we seek the Kaiburr crystals."

END

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