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

Maybe Byam had been dumb enough to believe it might some day become a dragon, but it knew an exegesis of the Way when it saw one. There were hundreds of such books here – more commentaries than Byam had seen in one place in its entire lifetime.

It wasn’t going to repeat its mistakes. Ascension, transcendence, turning into a dragon – that wasn’t happening for Byam. Heaven had made that clear.

But you couldn’t study something for three thousand years without becoming interested in it for its own sake.

‘Tell me about your research,’ said Byam.

‘What you said just now,’ said the monk. ‘Did you not—’

Byam showed its teeth.

‘My research!’ said the monk. ‘Let me tell you about it.’

Byam had planned to eat the monk when she was done. But it turned out the evolution of galaxies was an extremely complicated matter. When the moon rose, the monk had not explained even half of what Byam wanted to know.

She took out a glowing box and looked at it. ‘It’s so late!’

‘Why did you stop?’ said Byam.

‘I need to sleep,’ said the monk. She bent over the desk. Byam wondered if this was a good moment to eat her, but then the monk turned and held out a sheaf of paper.

‘What is this?’

‘Extra reading,’ said the monk. ‘You can come back tomorrow if you’ve got questions. My office hours are 3 to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays.’

She paused, her eyes full of wonder. She was looking at Byam as though it was special.

‘But you can come any time,’ said the monk.

*

Byam did the reading. It went back again the next day. Then the next.

It was easier to make sense of the texts with the monk’s help. And Byam had never had anyone to talk to about the Way before.

It didn’t count its past visits with monks. Leslie screamed much less than the others. She answered Byam’s questions as though she enjoyed them, whereas the others had always made it clear they couldn’t wait for Byam to leave.

‘I like teaching,’ she said when Byam remarked upon this. ‘I’m surprised I’ve got anything to teach you, though. I’d’ve thought you’d know all this stuff already.’

‘No,’ said Byam. It looked down at the diagram Leslie was explaining for the third time.

Byam still didn’t get it. But if there was one thing Byam was good at, it was trying again and again.

Well. That had been its greatest strength. Now, who knew?

‘It’s OK,’ said Leslie. ‘You know things I don’t.’

‘Hm.’ Byam wasn’t so sure.

Leslie touched its shoulder.

‘It’s impressive,’ she said, ‘that you’re so open to learning new things. If I were a celestial fairy there’s no way I’d work so hard. I’d just lie around getting drunk and eating peaches all day.’

‘You have a skewed image of the life of a celestial fairy,’ said Byam, but it did feel better.

No one had ever called it hardworking before. It was a new experience, feeling validated. Byam found it liked it.

Studying with Leslie involved many new experiences. Leslie was a great proponent of what she called fresh air. She dragged Byam out of the office regularly so they could inhale as much of this as possible.

‘But there’s air inside,’ objected Byam.

‘It’s not the same,’ said Leslie. ‘Don’t you get a little stir-crazy when you haven’t seen the sun in a while?’

Byam remembered the shock of emerging from its cave for the first time in eight hundred years.

‘Yes,’ it admitted.

Leslie was particularly fond of hiking, which was like walking, only you did it up a hill. Byam enjoyed this. In the past three thousand years it had seen more of the insides of mountains than their outsides, and it turned out the outsides were attractive at human eye-level.

The mountains were polite to Byam, as though there were still a chance it might ever become a dragon. This hurt, but Byam squashed the feeling down. It had made its decision.

It was on one of their hikes that Leslie brought up the first time they met. They weren’t far off the peak when she stopped to look into the distance.

Byam hadn’t realized at first – things looked so different from human height. But it recognized the place before she spoke. Leslie was staring at the very mountain that had been Byam’s home for eight hundred years.

‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘The last time I was here…’

Byam braced itself. I saw an imugi trying to ascend, she was going to say. It faceplanted on the side of a mountain – it was hilarious!

‘I was standing here wishing I was dead,’ said Leslie.

‘What?’

‘Not seriously,’ said Leslie hastily. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t have done anything. I just wanted it to stop.’

‘What did you want to stop?’

‘Everything,’ said Leslie. ‘I don’t know, I was young. I was having a hard time. It all felt too much to cope with.’

Humans lived for such a short time anyway, it had never occurred to Byam that they might want to hasten the end. ‘You don’t still…’

‘Oh no. It was a while ago.’ Leslie was still looking at Byam’s mountain. She smiled. ‘You know, I got a sign while I was up here.’

‘A sign,’ echoed Byam.

‘It probably sounds stupid,’ said Leslie. ‘But I saw an imugi. It made me think there might be hope… I started going to therapy. Finished my PhD. Things got better.’

‘Good,’ said Byam. It met Leslie’s eyes. She had never stopped looking at Byam as though it was special.

Leslie leant over and pressed her lips to Byam’s mouth.

Byam stayed still. It wasn’t sure what to do.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry!’ Leslie stepped back, looking panicked. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought maybe – of course we’re both women, but I thought maybe that didn’t matter to you guys. Or maybe you were even into… I was imagining things. This is so embarrassing. Oh God.’

Byam had questions. It picked just one to start with. ‘What were you doing? With the mouths, I mean.’

Leslie took a deep breath and blew it out. ‘Oh boy.’