The UnFolding Collection Two
S.K. Randolph
Illustrated by
S.K. Randolph
Contents
Collection Two
ConDra’s Fire
Metamorphosis
Fishing
Lessons
Wanted
Duplicity
MasTer’s Reach (Sample)
The Rest of the Story
Appendix
Glossary
About the Author
Acknowledgments
The UnFolding
Collection Two
with illustrations
Books 7 through 12
of
The UnFolding
written and illustrated
by
S.K. Randolph
Copyright © 2018 by S.K. Randolph
CheeTrann Creations LLC
17UF-V-31i
The UnFolding
A fantasy fiction tale of adventure and intrigue, follows a group of diverse characters on a quest to save the last remnant of Old Earth and to help bring balance to their home planets. Traveling through time and dimension, young and old combine wits and magic to thwart the diabolical plot of those determined to conquer and enslave the unique populations that inhabit the Inner Universe.
The UnFolding is told in four novels and eleven companion shorts (ten novelettes and one novella) totaling over two thousand pages.
Companion shorts are not stand-alone works, but rather additional morsels that enhance the reader’s knowledge of the characters, plot, actions, and worlds in The UnFolding. You may wish to move on to the next novel and save a companion short or two for reading when you are in need of a quick read.
The UnFolding: Collection Two
The middle six books in the UnFolding series
7. ConDra's Fire (a novel, 474 pages, 58 chapters)
Esán is focused on escape. His friends are focused on his rescue. Can the four young people outsmart their enemies?
8. Metamorphosis (Companion Short, a novelette, 41 pages, 1 chapter)
Falsely accused, convicted and banished from his planet for life. And now his real challenges begin.
9. Fishing (Companion Short, a novelette, 40 pages, 1 chapter)
His parents murdered before his eyes. Can he save himself and his little sister?
10. Lessons (Companion Short, a novelette, 42 pages, 1 chapter)
The loss of her people. The responsibility of leadership. Will this broken heart be mended?
11. Wanted (Companion Short, a novelette, 41 pages, 1 chapter)
Escaping from prison to face the beasts of the desert. Survival on a strange planet.
12. Duplicity (Companion Short, a novelette, 40 pages, 1 chapter)
The protector is called upon to reveal his secret shifted form or die defending his pledge.
ConDra’s Fire
UnFolding 7
Novel
with illustrations
Fantasy Fiction
The UnFolding
by
S.K. Randolph
Copyright © 2013-2018 by S.K. Randolph
CheeTrann Creations LLC
07UF-V-29+i
Map of DerTah
DerTah
Prologue
The children of many continue their course
To defy and destroy a sinister force;
The Unfolding pulls them along in its wake
Toward worlds to protect and the wicked to break.
T he Unfolding—the Time of Transformation on the last remaining piece of Old Earth—picked up momentum. Currents of change, like flash floods, surged from Myrrh to the planets of Thera, DerTah, KcernFensia, and the far-off world of RewFaar.
In the Guardian’s sanctuary, Elcaro’s Eye waited alone and all knowing. Rhythmic drops of water fell into the bowl, faltered, then ceased. Restless wavelets churned the calm surface into a tempest. The carved alabaster woman kneeling on the fountain’s rim gazed unblinkingly into its turbulent depths. An image emerged and steadied.
Massive wings cast their shadows across the vastness of a blood-red desert. Creatures of fire swooped above the sand, drank its shimmering heat, and soared out of sight. A darkened cave rose from Elcaro’s blue depths and wavered into focus. The cherry-colored embers of a dying fire captured a woman’s shadowed form. Writhing, fiery tendrils of hair framed her face. She stretched out her fisted hand and uncurled her fingers. On her palm a glowing crystal shifted in hue from saffron to glacier blue.
The figure dissolved in flares of orange. A convergence of light and color revealed a boy strapped to a long, narrow table. Tears streamed down his cheeks. The sharp snap of a metal band gripping his head sent a shock wave through his body. A scream shattered the late summer silence.
Beneath closed lids, Desirol’s eyes burned. The probes inserted into his temples scorched the tender flesh. Panic surged through him. A horrified howl roared up from his belly as searing pain electrified his mind, flinging its slivered fragments into oblivion. A tortured shudder catapulted him into unconsciousness.
The rhythm of horses’ hooves and the creak of wagon wheels called him back to himself. He squinted through swollen eyelids. Nothing. The rough fabric chafing his cheek reeked of dried blood and vomit. His hands and feet, still bound, ached. He lay motionless…trying to remember.
A single, shimmering tear formed in the alabaster woman’s eye, slid down her cheek, and fell, scattering the image like pieces of a broken heart. The gentle sound of falling water again filled the room.
The Unfolding continued…
1
ConDra’s Fire
DerTah
T he Fire ConDra of Fera Finnero gathered. Part dragon and part carnivorous condor, they materialized from searing waves of heat to hover above the vast DerTahan desert. Strident screams filled the air and flaming eyes focused on movement at the bottom of a steep, red dune. Immense and ravenous, they lifted en mass —wings blazing, tongues spewing sparks, nostrils smoking—and soared in a wide arc.
Terror tensed every muscle in fifteen-year-old Esán’s slender body. Sweat trickled down his neck. His gaze darted from the flaming ConDra in the sky to the frigid coldness of the death shadow, Wodash od DerTah. The creature’s pupils closed to vertical, crimson slits in stark white eyes. An icy blue tongue licked hungry, unsmiling lips. He fed on fear. Esán shoved his away and slipped into remembering…
His uncle, the notorious DiMensioner Seyes Nomed, dragged him across Myrrh’s Nemttachenn Tower. The floor burst open. A swirling vortex of color and light trapped them mid-stride. Twins Ari and Brie stepped between Nomed and his goal—Myrrh’s life and heart, the Evolsefil Crystal. Lightning flashed from his upraised hand. Chunks of granite hurtled through space. Thunder shook the fragmented remains of Nemttachenn.
Captive in the DiMensioner’s iron grip, Esán plummeted after the death shadow through the gaping hole. Falling forever—drifting in nothingness darker than night—he fought to calm his racing thoughts.
Light exploded around him. A wall of blistering heat sucked the breath from his lungs. Thrown free of imprisoning arms, he slid down the side of a blood-colored dune and came to a stop not far from the opaque whiteness of the death shadow’s bulk.
Nomed hit the bottom beside him. “Don’t move!” Springing to his feet, he untied his cape and hurled it into the air, where it remained, silver side up, hovering above his head. “Under here. Now!”
Esán did not think about escape. Beneath the cape was the only place he would survive the Fire ConDra of DerTah.
His eyes snapped open and darted around the unfamiliar space. Cobwebbed fragments of his dream, so real they scorched his throat, le
ft him panting. Throwing the sheet back, he padded across his quarters and gulped cool water from a pottery mug.
“My uncle kidnapped me. My uncle is Seyes Nomed, DiMensioner od DerTah.” The words left a bitter taste on his tongue. Drinking the last of his water, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Thoughts of Wodash’s frigid cold made him shiver. “Thank the Fathers, Nomed released him from indentured service…at least for the time being.” Esán shoved the death shadow’s memory to the back of his mind and crossed the room to the one small window in the round chamber.
Outside, the desert stretched as far as his eye could see. Red-orange dunes rolled, one after the other, in wave-like repetition all the way to the black line of the horizon. The sun rode high and close, much closer than the Theran sun. Heat from the scorched sand radiated upward in sheets of shimmering mirages. It was midday. No one at Shu Chenaro ventured out-of-doors, he had been told, until late afternoon.
A large, white bird soared into view. Esán pushed the window open and leaned out. A shock of heat slapped his cheeks. The bird swooped closer, black markings along the side of its head flashing by as it shot out of sight. Esán ducked back inside and pulled the window shut.
Somewhere a bell chimed. He straightened his clothes and slipped on his shoes. Today, he would meet the High DiMensioner od DerTah for the first time. Nomed had left instructions that he should join them in the conference chamber prior to midday repast. His curiosity quickened as he stepped into the hall and retraced the route a young male servant had shown him the previous night. Halfway there, his eagerness sank into uncertainty. There is no way they will let me go home. So…now what?
Pausing outside the conference chamber’s arched doorway, Esán surveyed the room. Perhaps twice as long as its width, it had windowless walls of creamy adobe. Built-in shelves at one end offset double shuttered doors at the other, where a figure in black stood with his back to the room. The brown and cream tile floor gleamed in the artificial light from two hanging lamps fashioned from animal horns. Abstract artwork in oranges, reds, and black added splashes of color and character to the bland walls.
Several men gathered around a long table at the room’s center. Nomed sat on the far side next to an empty chair, his conservative dress and hazel eyes in stark contrast to the dark hair and eyes of his scarlet-robed companions.
Nomed looked up. His smile tugged at the scar on his right cheek. “Come in and join us, Esán.”
Conversation ceased as he walked around the table to stand beside his uncle.
“This is my nephew and apprentice, Esán Efre. As we have discussed, he has many interesting talents.” Nomed indicated his companions. “These are the esteemed Dreelum od DerTah.”
Esán bowed his head to acknowledge each leader as introductions were made.
“Dreela Thaer from the Plains of DoOlb.” A short, rotund man with one eye that wandered stood. “Many battles have been fought on the lands of my fathers.” Carefully avoiding eye contact, he swept his greasy, black hair away from his face, made an attempt to straighten his crumpled robe, and slumped back onto his seat.
Craggy of face, lean, and graying, the man next to him pushed back his chair and rose. A voice like a snarl filled the room. “Dreela Omudi.” He glared first at Esán and then at Nomed. “I am from the Towne of TiCeed on the Island of Geran.”
“It is an honor, Dreela Omudi,” Esán said.
Across from him, a thin-faced man began a slow ascent to standing. Esán’s gaze climbed with him to his full height, where he stopped, his shock of white hair brushing the ceiling. “Dreela Baroh from the TheDa Mountains on the far side of the Plains of DoOlb.” His voice, dry and kind, rumbled around the room. “I welcome you to DerTah, Esán, nephew of Seyes Nomed.”
“Thank you, Dreela Baroh.” Dark eyes met his and descended as the reed-like body folded back onto the chair.
Quick, short, and muscular, the next Dreela surged to his feet, his body sparking with energy. “I am Gidtuss. Fire ConDra are my pets and the sands of Fera Finnero are my domain.” He paused to narrow his close-set eyes. Words licked the air like flames in an inferno. “You know it, young Esán, as the Desert of DerTah. And you also know the heat of its breath.”
“I am awed by the fearsome beauty of your home, Dreela Gidtuss.”
The man’s smirked smile, a cool compliment to his fire, formed and faded. “I need no title. I am Gidtuss, the great—”
“My dear Gidtuss,” a soft, fluid voice filled with irony interrupted, “you are a man of heat fueled by ego.”
Gidtuss scowled, stuck his nose in the air, and plopped down on his chair.
A figure draped in burnished gold flowed with languid grace from the doorway into the conference chamber. She stopped opposite Esán and Nomed. “As you told me, Seyes, he has a look of you.” Her deep, velvety voice rose and fell like water in the wind. “Too bad he did not come to DerTah of his own accord.”
Esán held back a gasp of surprise and looked with interest at the only woman he had seen in DerTah.
“I am Dreelas TheLise. The Sea of Trinuge is my home. You are welcome, Esán, to visit us. Have you ever sailed across an ocean?”
“I’ve never seen an ocean, Dreelas.”
Waves of short, dark hair framed her delicate features. Sparkles of gold flecked her slate-gray eyes; her skin glowed warm and brown. She winked and took her seat. Esán could not take his eyes off her.
A noise at the double doors drew everyone’s attention. A hand extended and positioned a black cane to the side. Esán felt Nomed tense. The scar on his cheek pulsed as the figure began a slow turn.
Like the reappearance of an eclipsed moon, facial features, inched into the light. Spiky hair the rich, deep brown of freshly furrowed earth; a well formed ear; a porcelain cheek; an eye that glistened with mystery; and a long, straight nose came into view. For a moment, the man stood statue-like, both hands resting on the cane, his chin high, his aristocratic profile chiseled and stoic.
The pivoted turn continued, transforming into a tap, step, drag, tap, step, drag that progressed the length of the table. Elegance and charm accompanied him as he greeted the Dreelum, his handsome profile expressing his pleasure at their presence. When he reached Nomed, he angled his lean body to maintain the side view of his face.
“It is good to see you, Seyes.” His vibrant voice carried a slight accent. Each enunciated syllable rolled from his tongue with fluid clarity and purpose.
He tilted his head. His eye slid from Nomed’s face to rest on Esán. His smiling mouth relaxed into a smooth line. With deliberate slowness he began to rotate, the left side of his face finding the light.
Gulping down his shock, Esán schooled his expression and kept his eyes on the man whom he knew had barely survived his first attempt to shape shift. Accentuated by the overhead lighting, the almost translucent skin on the left side of his face exposed a web of pale, blue veins crawling over a withered cheek that pulled downward to a mouth trapped in a spasm of dreadful pain. His brow, an arch of feather-like barbs, intensified the opaque murkiness of a milky eye. Esán let his gaze follow the stripe of white that ran from the hairline above the brow along the side of the man’s head. When it reached the upraised shoulder and deformed arm, he brought his eyes back to the High DiMensioner. The osprey remained very much alive in the disfigured face and the clawed hand that rested on the crystal knob of the ironwood cane.
A silence thick with tension settled over the room. Everything muted into a background of hazy shapes. There was only the man across from him—only the man whose eyes, one dark green and alive and one without sight, locked his in a stranglehold. Sinking deeper and deeper into darkness, Esán gripped the back of his chair, masked his mind, and shifted his gaze to a mole on the man’s ravaged cheek. A low laugh pulled his eyes back to a frontal view of the strange face.
“You are good, young Esán. Most would not have had the presence of mind to mask their thoughts or to look away from my gaze.
Do you know who I am?”
“You are Wolloh, sir. Nomed’s mentor.”
He laid the cane on the table. “Do you know why all of us are here today?”
“No, sir.”
“We are,” he said, looking slowly around the room, “here to meet you and assess your potential. You are a specimen, boy. Something to be studied, examined like a bug under a microscope. How does that make you feel?”
Esán met his commanding gaze. A mind touch forced him back a step. “Please do not probe my mind, sir, and I will afford you the same courtesy.”
Someone in the room gasped.
Wolloh slammed a clawed hand on the table. “Answer my question, boy. How does it make you feel?”
“Curious, sir. It makes me feel curious.”
“Explain.” The word snapped like a trap.
“If I am your specimen, then you are mine. And…I am curious to know more of you.”
A laugh began and choked into silence.
“Come here…so I can see you better.”
Esán walked around the table. The twisted hand cupped his chin. The mismatched eyes held his for what seem like eternity.
“You will do, boy.” He dropped his hand and picked up his cane. “You will do nicely.” He turned to the Dreelum od DerTah and thumped the floor with his stick three times. “His assessment begins tomorrow. Now, let us adjourn to the dining room to enjoy a meal together.”
Nomed appeared at Esán’s elbow. “Go back to you room. Your midday meal will be served to you there. I’ll come by later.”
Outside the arched doorway Esán paused, his mind emptied of thoughts.
“You realize he must be broken, Seyes,” someone said, “or he will never bend to your will.”
Esán clenched his jaw. The muscles in his neck tensed. A single thought shot through his mind. I will not be broken .
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