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

‘This isn’t slapdash.’ I stand up while I speak but with my back stooped due to my height and the sub’s low ceiling. While I talk I check if there are any holes or unusual scratches on the suit. ‘Seven times I’ve sailed this river and lake back and forth; last time I was losing hope but then I found the cave. I was unprepared but now… I’m convinced if I take a peek I will find proof.’

Nyradur doesn’t seem convinced but he doesn’t object.

‘Would you kindly lower the anchor and empty the tanks?’ I ask.

The dwarf silently gets to work, the boat starts to float with ease up to the surface. I go to the back, attach the cylinder to the suit and put on the mask and the helmet.

*

Evening is falling. From the clear sky, the yellow-red sun glitters on the water. A beautiful sight. But under the surface the water is not nearly as sensational.

Where I stand on top of my half-submerged Early Bird, the silence around me exaggerates my own sounds: the breath behind the mask and the crunching of the suit when I check the air hose, the swimfins, the tools in the belt, and the safety line.

This is it. Do or die.

Before I jump into the water, I say into the small microphone on my cheek, ‘Remember, ease out the line, let the sub sink after me, take pictures and light the way!’

‘Aye!’

I sink. Sink. The suit pressures against my skin. The cold rises. The gleams of sunlight are having a hard time penetrating the turbid, polluted water. With each meter downwards the murk accumulates.

At first I swim alone against the dark bottom. I turn on the light on the safety helmet, it doesn’t illuminate much.

‘Hurry, Nyradur. Time is of the essence. Hurry, hurry.’

What the hell? He doesn’t answer. Don’t tell me the radiotelephone has worn out. Now? Come on. Piece of crap.

I look up and see the keel of the submarine approaching, the bubbles whirl around the hull, the anchor chain is drawn out, the safety line dances between us. I swim a bit forward.

When I look back, I can now see the front porthole on Early Bird’s beak. Inside, Nyradur sits concentrated at the helm with the clunky paracamera in his lap, directing the light projectors at the cave orifice.

My path is enlightened.

Through the mask’s glass I check my arm. Shallow cracks have formed in the suit material but it hasn’t begun to peel. I’m safe, for now.

The short swim down to the cave is slow, the pressure increases, I tread very carefully. The droning water begins to produce steady deep bass tones, my breathing becomes faster, a stench of sweat wafts up from the inside of the suit. I must stay calm.

The cave tunnel starts in a slight slope. It’s not very steep so I should be able to enter without sinking straight into the abyss. When Nyradur has granted me enough light I let myself glide in.

The rock is smoother and more slithery than I thought. With the swimfins I get no foothold but I manage to get steady buoyancy by grabbing hold of the security line. The rock is smooth – could this mean that it has taken this form through the ages after the serpent’s countless trips in and out? I must take some specimens.

From the belt I produce a tiny hammer, a chisel and a small box fastened to a band. While I chisel out splinters from the rock and put them in the box, I notice that the top layer of the suit is beginning to peel. I can’t potter about with this for too long. Must find more decisive proof. I look at the clock attached to the wrist on the suit: eleven minutes have passed since I went under. Nineteen to go.

I manage to go one more meter into the cave. Close in front of me the floor falls precipitously down into the unknown darkness. I can’t venture further.

Is this it? Nothing more? It can’t be. It just can’t.

Reaching my upper body about, I examine the walls, first to my right, then to my left.

I see something.

A chest! Holy shit, there is a chest stuck in a hole in the wall! It’s mostly made out of metal, covered in patina and the hinges are visually weak.

Could it really be… is this the chest… the one and only?

In a fluster I lose control of the buoyancy but just before I sink deeper into a pressure I might not handle, I manage to stick my long arm into the hole and grab the handle on the side of the chest.

It’s stuck. I pull and pull. It’s immovable. It’s as if it was pushed in with tremendous force. Again I take the chisel from the belt and begin to hew into the weak seams of the metal.

Now eighteen minutes have passed since I went under. The colour of the suit is not fair copper anymore, but gray with black streaks all over.

The front side of the chest finally gives away, bunch of old clothes well about, which I drag out: a neatly stitched skirt, an apron, couple of headscarves, a neckerchief, a wrapping headdress, an ornamental belt, a decorative collar – fine women’s clothing from hundreds of years ago.

Now it comes in handy to be the gangly pole I am. I reach my arm further in with care, making sure that the air hose isn’t damaged in the process, and start to scrounge inside the chest. As soon as I feel an object hard to the touch at the bottom, I grab it and pull my arm back out. In my palm there is some kind of a trinket.

It’s a golden brooch!

Is the original tale really true then?

There have been arguments about if it was a golden ring or a golden brooch. But here is a brooch. In an entrance of a cave, that must be the serpent’s lair.

In the original