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

tale of the Lagar Serpent, a young woman from around this region in the far eastern part of Iceland got a golden trinket (a brooch, it seems) as a gift from her father, a wealthy farmer and landowner. She had heard that if a simple worm was put on gold, a great treasure would grow from it in a year’s time. Either if she believed the story or did it for entertainment’s sake, she innocently found what she thought to be a simple worm and put it with her brooch in a wooden casket, and the casket into her chest of clothes. A week later, when she opened the chest, probably to look for something to wear, she saw to her horror that the casket had exploded to pieces, the worm had grown manyfold and was hostile. The people at the big farm took the chest out to the river, rowed out to the middle of it, and sunk the chest where the river was the deepest. After that, the two Finnish sorcerers were hired to slay the growing worm.

The story doesn’t say if the worm the young woman found was a lake serpent, that is to say, a stray cryptid, perhaps a baby serpent that accidentally went through The Shroud. Why the serpent became so huge as described in the stories is difficult to tell. It would be interesting to research later on, that is, if the specimens and the brooch will be enough for the research center to support me. Only if Nyradur and I would have gotten a picture of the serpent, then I wouldn’t even have to question it. I really hope something biologic will be in the rock splinters. If I get the support, I will find the serpent eventually, take a lot of pictures and prove its existence to the world.

Over-excited about this discovery, I almost forget about the time. I only have five minutes left of the half hour the ranger asserted was the max I could stay in the water. I don’t want to risk disease, cancer, my skin burning up or simply a sudden death. I must ascend to the surface. Must give Nyradur the signal to pull me up.

On my way out of the cave, I wonder why the chest is here, in that hole? Might the chest have some kind of sentimental value to the serpent? As far as the stories go, the serpent has always lived in solitude. Maybe it associates the chest to its origin?

These questions are worth asking. I have to find the serpent later, I have to record its behaviour. I must convince the research center. I must succeed. This is not over.

*

The lights above me blink rapidly.

Yes, Nyradur, I know, I’m running out of time, I think to myself as I step out of the cave and give him the signal.

Even though the anchor and the safety line are being pulled in, the light projectors continue to blink. What’s wrong with that dwarf?

The blinking stops and I can see inside Early Bird. Dripping with sweat Nyradur waves and gesticulates with one hand, using the other to prop the wheel that draws in the security line, and pushing the button for the anchor with one foot. He seems to be shouting, even screaming. The camera is lying in front of him on the control panel.

Where is he pointing to? Where we came from? The deep valley? And to what is he now turning the light projectors?

My work has gained richer meaning and at the same time I’m in mortal danger.

It has been my obsession, it has been in my dreams, not only for these past three years. Since I read my first book about cryptids as a little girl, it has been my dream to discover the Lagar Serpent. Now I’ve discovered it and it seems that I won’t live to tell about it.

I’m amazed, tearful and terrified.

Out from the underwater valley a terrible beast rises. Its long, enormous body wriggles through the turbid water like a gigantic maelstrom. For their size and thickness, the scaled flippers flap with incredible speed, pushing this impossible creature forward. The teeth are numerous and each the size of a full-grown dwarf. The open maw shows the inside of the jaws, the dark-green gums and the slithery tongue that is pointed at us. The Lagar Serpent screams, I can’t hear it, but I see the water carry the sonic waves from its maw to me, feeling the boom on the mask.

In confused desperation I start to swim upwards and wave at Nyradur, but it serves no purpose, he’s already doing everything in his power to drag me up. It’s a slow process, much too slow. The serpent approaches fast, much too fast.

I only hope I will not suffer. Instead of breaking down I spontaneously give Nyradur a signal to take pictures. If he survives this and retrieves what will be left of me, he could make sure that my work lives on, he could make sure that I’ve made my mark on cryptozoology, and that I’ll be remembered.

I gaze into the Lagar Serpent’s maw. Fresh remnants of meat are stuck between some of the teeth.

Abruptly it halts and not only looks at me and Early Bird, but examines us, directing its long neck from left to right, several nerve-wracking times. It seems that the serpent is more threatened by the submarine than me. Its dark eyes are small compared to the size of all its other body parts. Even for that, I can read from the stare that this cryptid, this wonderbeast, possesses considerable intelligence, opposed to, for instance, shellmonsters who have very limited intellect but tough bodies.

The serpent makes a decision and attacks the submarine with powerful swiftness, locking its teeth in the hull and under the keel, pushing the boat askew up to the surface, towards the beach, like it’s throwing an unwanted visitor out of its home.

I see where Nyradur is thrown back. He drops