The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

that some of them are liable to attack people, so the ones who saw them didn’t live to tell the tale. Mysterious deaths and disappearances in the wild, now and then, are believed to be partly connected to cryptids and wonderbeasts. In those rare cases when they threaten human life, beastslayers are hired. Such brutality lies out of my field, thankfully, because I don’t know if I have it in me to hurt beasts, or animals in general.

For all that, and even though wonderbeasts can be extraordinary, many more people are interested in other supernatural beings, they prefer dandy elves over beachwalkers, shellmonsters, blue foxes, horned polar bears, wethorses, lake serpents et cetera. The public and the authorities don’t understand how important and relevant our work is. This is not only about knowledge but also about public good, prudence and safety. If authorities knew how to handle the beasts, we wouldn’t need beastslayers.

Grants for cryptozoology are scarce and the competition in the field is hard… it’s dog eat dog. To get ahead in the research of the Lagar Serpent I’ve had to sacrifice much. I have scrounged all possible tales about it, from the first mentions in the 1345 annal to contemporary rumblings. And in my research I have travelled far and wide across the country, studied other Unseen and Seen lake serpents. In fact, the only Seen and fully recorded one is the black Kleifar Serpent in Kleifar Lake at the Reykjanes Peninsula. That serpent is only about three meters long, not thirty as was claimed in folklore. It’s said that the Lagar Serpent is gigantic and I hope and believe it is. I want to believe.

Over the past three years, I have dived in Lagar River and Lagar Lake seven times, and I’m confident that I’ve found three tenable traces of the serpent. They are:

1. A broad, rusty part of a chain, two meters long, likely from the equipment that was supposedly used to bind the serpent in the fourteenth century. Naturally, there were no biological traces of the serpent on it, since the piece had been in the water for centuries. The story goes that two Finnish sorcerers were hired to kill the serpent, but soon realized it was an impossible task without binding it to the bottom of the lake. They managed to lure it but at the last moment before the last chain was fastened, the serpent broke free and ate them.

2. A pile of animal bones I noticed at only ten meters of depth. The bones were battered, covered in large teeth marks, and remnants of meat still flickered on them. I’m in no doubt the animals were dragged into the water and heaped to this one spot by a much larger beast. This could mean that it has started to go on land in search for food since there is not much left of it in the water. The pictures I took of the pile back then were poor, taken through a porthole on the submarine. Also, that camera was crap. When I let the sub float to the surface and dived myself to retrieve some of the bones, they were gone. Nothing, not a trace. The serpent is cunning. Somehow it must have known that the pile had been discovered.

3. A cave orifice at the mouth of the river, in the junction that connects it to the lake. In reports and research papers written by older cryptozoologists there is no mention of this cave. My theory is that it was always hidden under aquatic plants and algae which now has vanished due to the pollution. If it is the serpent’s lair and I’m to descend deep into the murk to study him, I would need a ridiculously expensive suit, probably a bathysphere, a whole crew and better preventive measures. The obvious danger would be the serpent itself but diving deep into a cave in this poisonous water is lethal. Still, I must take a peek in hopes of finding traces or specimen. I should be able to dive a few meters down into the cave, attached to a safety line. Last time my old suit and diving equipment were about to give way when I was at the mouth of the cave, and the pressure was really starting to get to me. Now I have slightly better equipment and I’ve improved my diving stamina. If nothing changes, the cave is now on the top of my list to explore.

These traces come under unsolved speculations, not evidence. Not yet. The people at CWRC want more tenable source material if they are to approve full-blown research, with a crew, quality equipment, pomp and circumstance. They think the Lagar Serpent, if it ever existed, has died or vanished from our world because of the lake’s condition. Therefore it would be a waste of money and resources to look for it. But I’m certain, as ever, that the Lagar Serpent is still here. In some stories it’s said to be venomous. Why can’t it be a possibility then that such a large and old venomous beast is immune to poison? Or that it can simply withstand the pollution whether it’s venomous or not?

Diving in Lagar River and Lagar Lake without ridiculously expensive equipment is almost impossible now. On top of that, my purse is empty, all finances dried, both the ones I’ve gathered with small grants and with my own money. I’m all in. I’ve everything to lose. It’s my last chance.

My and Nyradur’s plan is to stay in the sub and thread our way down the whole river, all the way to the lake. I will not risk going into the water myself unless we discover something unmistakably and undoubtedly juicy. Excrement from the serpent would be a dream come true.

My future could be determined by a half-hour dive. Even with the new drysuit handling more than the old one, the acidity of the water will still eat its way through.

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