Yael Dragwyla and Rich Ransdell First North American rights

email: polaris93@aol.com 3,200 words

The Eris War

Volume II: The Dragon from the Isles

Book 1: Independence Day

Chapter 1: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On!

“Hunh? Whuzzat?”
It was my wife, who, rolling over next to me, had flung her arm across my body. The room was filled
with early morning light.
“What’s going on?” I mumbled, groggy from lack of sleep, just beginning to wake up. I glanced over
at the digital clock, whose odiously cheery, bright red display informed me that it was precisely 07:16:2022
05:42:22 a.m.  “—Wait, do I feel the earth moving?”
“Sweetheart, if I’ve told you once, I must have told you a thousand times, don’t tell jokes we’ve all
heard a million – oh, my God, it is the earth moving! Rich, come on, wake up, please wake up!” she cried.
By then, however, I was finally fully awake and struggling to sit up. I could hear the cats crying in
fright in the hallway. Out in the kitchen, the tinkling of kitchenware and storage bins against countertop
and the walls of cupboards were all testifying to the same event: we were in the midst of an earthquake – a
bad one, to judge by the swaying of the bed beneath us, the creaks of the walls all around us, the crashing
of various and sundry items in the kitchenette and the front room on the floor and against the furniture.
“Oh, shit – get in a corner of the room! The doorway!” I screamed, jumping out of bed and heading
for a corner of the room, thinking she was right behind me.
Before I could reach my goal, however, or Cathy, my wife, could even get out of bed, the shaking had
stopped.
“Dear God, that must have been a 6.0 or better!” exclaimed Cathy, her face gone chalky, the freckles
standing out on it like port-wine stains. Her hands, clenched into fists, were trembling minutely, like a
thyroid tremor. Her eyes were huge. Now, standing by the bed, she was hunched up as if preparing for a
fight.
“It’s – it’s over, darlin’,” I told her shakily. “I think.”
“Uh – no telling until the aftershocks start hitting,” she told me, slowly swinging her legs over the side
of the bed and getting to her feet. “We’d better get dressed, get ready to get out of here, just in case.”
Another tremor, this one lasting only a second or two, jolted the building. Though it was much less
intense than the one that had awakened us, it was still strong enough to nearly throw me off my feet. More
crashes of small, fragile things out in the other rooms and from the bathroom. Now the cats were both
wailing loudly in terror.
Outside somewhere, a dog began to howl mournfully; its howls were taken up by more dogs, near and
far, until the dreadful sound filled the air. Coming faintly on the air from somewhere closer to the UCSB
campus, we could hear the terrified wails and screams of the people who lived there, along with the
frenzied neighing of horses and barking of dogs. Closer to home, car-motors began to rev, and men started
yelling at one another in loud, panicky voices.
Quickly, before another shock could hit, Cathy and I threw on our clothes, jumping into jeans, boots,
and T-shirts, then went out into the rest of the apartment to check on the cats and see what the damage was.
Strangely, not much was out of place in the front room beyond some knickknacks on the floor and CDs
fallen out of their racks. Most things were firmly in place, including the new digital television we’d just
purchased a few days ago. The latter, which was enthroned in a gigantic oakwood entertainment center far
too heavy to have been tipped or even moved very far by anything short of an 8.0 earthquake (that
particular white elephant, which was ugly as sin but, unfortunately, was just too useful to relegate to
storage, the way I’d wanted to ever since it first came into the house, had been given to us for Christmas
several years ago by Cathy’s mother), was completely undamaged, as was our stereo system, likewise
ensconced in a heavy cabinet of its own. Our computers, mine back in the bedroom as well as the one
Cathy used in the extra bedroom we’d converted into a combination work- and sewing room, were also in
good shape, though the monitor that came with mine had been scooted an inch or two on its base along the
top of the computer desk, and the printer was balanced precariously on the edge of its stand. Rumpleteazer
and Mungojerry, our cats, though badly shaken, were both fine – glaring at us from their perch on top of the
television set, they switched their tales and told us in no uncertain terms via eloquent body-language that
they held us both responsible for this latest fine mess, and would we like to call our lawyers to discuss the
matter before they filed suit?
Heaving a vast dual sigh of relief, we went out to look at the kitchenette, which was another story
entirely.
Broken crockery lay everywhere – the cabinet that had held the dishes had fallen off the wall, crashing
against the countertop before falling to the linoleum floor below. Apparently whoever had put it up had not
done the world’s most competent job. The weight of the dishware and other things in it had already
weakened its supports, and the quake had done the rest.
Swearing, Cathy pulled open the refrigerator. The food in there was a bit disarrayed, but it had been so
tightly jammed with food that there wasn’t much room for anything to move, and consequently there were
no spills or messes within it. “That’s a blessing!” I told her as she held open the refrigerator door so I could
look in. “But what the hell are we going to eat off?” I grumbled.
“Not to worry, the other cabinets held just fine – didn’t you put that new set of dishes we got from the
Akron the other day in one of them?” she asked me.
“That’s right, I did. Okay, we got plates. How’s the rest of the stuff?”
The utensils, cached in their drawers, were fine, as were the kitchen tools in the drawers underneath
them. Pots and pans were stowed in a closed drawer under the stove, no problem. The microwave was
fine. The only real problem here was the mess presented by the broken dishware, the accompanying flour,
sugar, and coffee from the Rubbermaid bins that had fallen from the countertop to the floor, spilling their
contents everywhere, and the salt, pepper, and spice containers that had fallen from the back of the stove
and the countertops and had of course rolled into various horribly-hard-to-get-at sites around the kitchen,
such as the niches behind and under the stove and the refrigerator.
As I peered gloomily at the ungodly mess, Rumpleteazer and Mungojerry, who had, now that all the
shaking was over with, jumped down from the TV set, came over to us, looking around our ankles to see
just what the hell was going on. “Nee?” asked ’Jerry, a small, long-neutered tom who more than made up
for his lack of both bulk and procreative abilities with the sort of brainless courage that had, at times, sent
him sailing straight at pit-bulls and Saint Bernards with no thought but “How dare you sully my territory
with your foul presence?!”
“Mee!” commented ’Teazer, doing her best to switch her non-existent tail. Then, seeing that I was
preoccupied with less important (i.e., non-feline) issues, she turned about and began assiduously washing
herself, somehow managing, in spite of the enormous bulk of the body in the way, to glare at me over her
spinal ridge as she went about her toilette.
“Hold your horses,” I snapped with somewhat more irritation than I should have – after all, the cats
had ample reason to wonder what the hell was up. Sighing, I added, “I’ll get you something to eat, okay?”
 At the Magick word “eat” they perked up their ears and came bouncing into the kitchen, where they
discovered the heaps of spilled coffee, flour, and sugar on the floor. Bending down to sniff the coffee, ’Jer
raised his head again and snorted, “Nerf!”
“No, ’Jer, we used up the last of the nerf for supper last Friday,” I told him. “Han hasn’t brought us
any more, yet. – Here, let that alone, ’Teaz!” I yelled, as Rumpleteazer, who had just discovered one of the
spice-bottles that had fallen onto the floor, began happily batting it back and forth. Quickly bending down
and scooping it up – it was the paprika, one of my wife’s more expensive spices, too much so to waste any
of it – I set it on the countertop, then told the cats, “There’s food for you in the ’fridge. I’ll get you your
breakfast, and then you two are going in the bedroom until we get this mess under control.”
’Jerry gave me a dirty look. Rumpleteazer, pretending she hadn’t heard the phrase “in the bedroom,”
went hunting for more toys to play with. While Cathy intercepted her and began picking up all the
remaining bottles of spices that had fallen onto the floor, I got the cats’ food out of the refrigerator and
began dishing it up for them.
“The faucet’s dripping,” Cathy told me as I set the cats’ breakfast on the floor near the door to the
laundry-room and then came back to find a dust-pan and whisk-broom to clean up the spilled food on the
floor.
“It wasn’t last night, was it?” I said.
“Not that I recall, sweetheart. It had to have been the quake.”
“I’ll take a look at it later. Nothing to worry about right now. Cathy, would you go check the
bathroom and see if it’s okay?”
“Sure.”
Shortly she was back, her face a study in mixed emotions.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well,” she said slowly, trying not to grin, “remember that after-shave you got the other day at K-
Mart, to try out, that I said I hated?”
“Yeah. What happened to it?”
“It’s underneath this big pile of just about everything else in there . . . leaking.”
“Oh, shit!” Throwing down the dust-pan, which I’d finally found on the floor of the cabinet beneath
the sink – the quake had thrown it off its nail and jumbled everything up down there, so it had taken a bit to
find it – I went to see what had happened to the bathroom.
The bathroom was a disaster area. Cursing, I stood in the bathroom doorway, staring at the puddles of
moisturizing cream, liquid soap, shaving cream, perfume, shards of glass from broken bottles, and bits and
pieces of shattered window that had fallen from the window next to the shower. “Oh, Jesus wept!” I
groaned.
“Mee?” said ’Jerry, who, ever-curious about everything that went on, had come to see what had
happened.
“The last time I looked, you weren’t Jesus,” I told him. “Even if you don’t believe it. – Here,” I told
him, picking him up, “let’s put you in the bedroom for now so you don’t get into things.” So saying, I
carried him down the hall to the bedroom and, gently boosting him inside, closed the door on him. Behind
the door he began to complain loudly. “I’ll go get her,” I told him, going out to look for Rumpleteazer.
It didn’t take long to find the Manx – following Mungojerry, as she usually did when interesting things
were happening (in case there were land-mines in the path), to find out what was going on, she was
standing by the bathroom door when I came back from securing her partner in crime. Thankfully I didn’t
have to hunt her down – she was very clever at playing hide-and-seek; you wouldn’t believe how many
places there are for a small cat to hide in a medium-sized apartment occupied by two long-married human
beings and all their possessions! – I grabbed her and quickly put her in the bedroom to join her accomplice.
Coming back to the bathroom, I found Cathy standing there, surveying it with the sort of wonder
people usually reserve for scenic miracles such as the Grand Canyon or the wreck of the Hindenberg.
“This is really something, isn’t it?” she marveled.
Sighing, I said, “Know where the mop is, darlin’? I’d better get busy and clean this up.”
“I’ll help,” she told me. “I’ll get the cleaning things, then we can get at this before all that perfume and
aftershave and such starts to really stink the place up. Don’t touch any of it until I get gloves and a sweeper
– you could get a nasty cut on that glass, okay?” she said as she turned back to find sponges, a bucket, and
the rest of the cleaning supplies.
 While she went to get the mop and other cleaning tools, I grabbed the laundry hamper that stood just
inside the bathroom door, and pulled it into the hallway, thinking we’d need it for the towels and whatever
else we used to clean up the mess in there, or, at least, the stuff we could put in the wash afterward.
“Here they are, Rich,” Cathy told me as she appeared with the mop, mop-bucket, and some other
things she’d gotten from the kitchen.
“Thanks,” I told her, accepting the bucket and a large sponge which she held out to me.
“Put the gloves on first,” she told me, holding out a pair of latex gloves to me. “Let me go in there
with that bucket and get the glass up first, then you can clean up, okay?”
“Er, right,” I told her. “Hey, what time is it? You looked at the clock lately?”
She glanced at her watch, which she’d apparently grabbed from the nightstand as we got up. “About 6
a.m. Wonder when that quake hit?”
“Couldn’t have been very long,” I said, standing aside to let her enter the room with the bucket, where
she began carefully shepherding chunks of glass and large globs of miscegenated assorted creams, goos,
gels, and perfumes into the bucket with a huge sponge.
“Tell you what, while you finish cleaning up in here,” she told me as she corralled some of the broken
glass on the floor with a whisk-broom and dust-pan and dumped it into the wastebasket standing under the
sink, “I’ll go dispose of this glass and stuff and then turn on the television, see what the news is. Then I’ll
make breakfast for us while you watch the tube, okay?”
“Sure,” I told her. “Uh, you almost through in there?”
“I think so. Just be real careful where you put your hands and feet there, hear me?” she said as she
dumped the last of the glass into the wastebasket and, picking it up, came back out into the hall with it.
“No problem – I’m wearing boots, okay?”
“That’s no help – the sides of those boots aren’t the world’s strongest material, you know? You could
get a bad cut right through that fake leather, dammit!”
Still too rattled by the quake to muster enough energy to become irritated, rather than snapping back at
her I just mumbled assent and, as she took the bucket out of the bathroom and made for the back door to go
empty it in the dumpster behind the building, I got down on my hands and knees and began carefully
mopping up the rest of the gooey mess with one of those big sponges she’d brought to me, rinsing it under
the tap and wringing it out in the sink before returning to the attack.
When she returned from emptying the wastebasket in the dumpster, she came back into the hall and
asked me, “Anything else I can do before starting breakfast?”
“Well, tell you what,” I told her, “let me soak up some of this mess with towels from the rack there,
then I’ll hand them to you and you put them in that hamper. And you can get me some more from the linen
closet, okay?” I said as I snatched towels from the racks on the walls and the shower door and began
mopping up more of the fragrant puddled goo on the floor with them. “Oh, shit! – No, never mind.”
“What?” she asked me, gently depositing a stack of towels on the floor next to the bathroom door.
“You were right, darlin’ – I almost cut myself on a chunk of glass just then, dammit,” I told her
ruefully. “Started to slip and it was right under my hand, in a middle of a clot of this stuff. Caught myself
just in time.”
“You be careful, Richard – don’t want you to bleed to death just yet – not until you change our life-
insurance policy, anyway,” she told me, chuckling. “Hey, want me to take a hand at that, while you man
the hamper?” she asked me, concerned.
“Sure.” Rising to my feet and stepping backward carefully on the small portion of bathroom flooring
not covered with the mess, turning as I stepped onto the hall rug, I deposited my burden of soiled towels in
the hamper. “Be careful not to step in it – or cut your hand on any shards of glass we might have missed.”
“No problem,” she told me, carefully kneeling down in the doorway and beginning to dab gingerly at
the puddles of good with one of the towels she’d brought.
Within a fairly short time we had the floor clean without managing to cut ourselves on the glass or
even get too much of the gooey mess on ourselves. Then, while I emptied out the mop-bucket and came
back to see what else needed to be done in the bathroom, she went into the kitchen and began to prepare
breakfast. Just as I came back out into the front room, which was already fragrant with the odor of cooking
bacon, I remembered the television. “Hey, darlin’, want me to turn on the tube?”
“Please,” she told me, sounding distracted, fully engaged with making breakfast.
Picking up the remote and aiming it at the television, I clicked on the power. The set came awake with
a roar of static and rainbow snow. Using the remote, I began trolling through the channels, looking for a
news broadcast. Maybe CNN or one of the regular networks would be best – of course, there was always
Channel 11 or 13, Los Angeles stations which would have something about the quake more or less relevant
to us out here in the Ellwood Beach area of Goleta, California, a couple of miles west of the University of
California at Santa Barbara – it must have been felt all the way down there –
My channel-surfing suddenly paid off. I found myself looking at the KTTV Channel 11 newsroom,
where a white-faced, extremely tall young man, his hands trembling, was saying: “—Ladies and gentlemen
. . . Seattle . . . Seattle just doesn’t . . . seem to be there any more . . .” Suddenly, he put his face into his
hands and began to sob, his shoulders heaving, tag-ends of his badly disarrayed, sweat-soaked ash-blond
hair straying around his face and hands.