"Edmond Hamilton - The Monsters of Juntonheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

above.


Open wide your gates, Heimdall! boomed Thor impatiently. Are we to be kept waiting here till we
rot?

Softly, Thor, Frey said to the Hammerer. It was Heimdall, remember, whose keen eyes saw Freya
and the Jotuns and warned us.

Heimdall, the warder of the guardhouse, waved his hand to us. Winches groaned, and the barred gates
swung inward. We spurred forward. I was glad to leave that unrailed bridge over the abyss. We rode
right through the arched tunnel that pierced the guardhouse, and clattered onto a stone-paved plaza.


Asgard lay before me.


Involuntarily I slacked my bridle and stared at the great gray castles that were built in a ring around the
sheer edge of the lofty island. All twenty had been built of gray stone hewn from the rock of the island
itself, and all were tiled with thin stone slates. Each consisted of a big, rectangular, two-storied hall, with
two branching lower wings and two guardtowers. They faced toward a far huger pile that rose from the
center of the island.


The largest castle had four guardtowers, and its vast, stone-tiled roof loomed over the rest of Asgard
like a man-made mountain. Between this great hall and the ring of smaller castles lay small fields and
cobbled streets of stone houses and workshops.
Hundreds of the people of Asgard were in the streets and fields. All were fair-haired, blue-eyed and
large-statured. Many of the men wore helmets and mailed brynjas, and were armed with sword, ax or
bow. Other men wore metal rings around their necks, but they went about their tasks cheerfully enough.
The women wore long blue or white gowis, with wimpled hoods. There were scarcely any children.


Must be an unbelievably low birthrate here, I muttered. That could be due to the hard radiation effect.

The faint, eldritch green glow pervaded this island, like the mainland. It was certainly exhilarating. It was
restoring my vigor with amazing speed. But if it was actually gamma or a similar hard radiation, as I
suspected, it would be bound to cause a partial sterility among people who were continually exposed to
it.


We spurred toward the central castle, halted our horses on a stone plaza guarded by a file of soldiery.


This is Valhalla, the castle of our king, Freya told me as we dismounted. Courage, Jarl Keith. Odin will
explain all to you.

The touch of her slim white fingers seemed to steady me. Valhalla, the legendary gathering hall of the
gods, had stunned me. I grinned weakly and followed Thor as he clanked through the arched entrance
and strode down a stone corridor into a vast hall.