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

My obsession with the mystery had made me read Dubman's books on old Norse myths. The Aesir,
said the legends, inhabited the fabled city of Asgard, which was separated from the land of Midgard by
a deep gulf that was spanned by a wonderful rainbow bridge. All around Midgard lay the frozen, lifeless
wastes of Niffleheim.


In the great hall Valhalla reigned Odin, king of the Aesir, and his wife Frigga. And in other castles dwelt
the other gods and goddesses. Once Loki had been of the Aesir, till he turned traitor and was prisoned
with his two monstrous pets, the wolf Fenris and the Midgard serpent Iormungandr.


I read about the Jotuns the giants who lived in dark Jotunheim and incessantly battled the Aesir. Then
there were the dwarfs of Earth, the Alfings who dwelt in subterranean Alfheim. Hel, the wicked
death-goddess whose dreaded hall was near the dark city of the Jotuns. Muspelheim, the fiery realm
beneath Midgard.


One thing in these legends impressed me. They depicted the Aesir as mortal beings who possessed the
secret of eternal youth in common with the giants and dwarfs. None of them grew old, but any of them
could be slain. If Loki were released, bringing about Ragnarok the twilight of the gods the Aesir
would perish.


As I delved deeper into the books of Rydberg, Anderson and Du Chaillu, I learned that ethnologists
thought there was some real basis to these legends. They believed the Aesir had been real people with
remarkable powers. All my reading had only intensified my interest in the enigmatic rune key from the
sea. I knew it bordered on superstition, but I felt that if I were away from the influence of others, the
damned thing might actually get coherent.


I'll be back by four o'clock, I said. It won't take me long to map a sled route.

Be sure you take no chances, Dr. Carrul called anxiously.


Streaking across the ice, the rocket plane roared into the chill air. I circled above the schooner, climbed
higher, and then headed northward across the ice-pack. Within ten minutes, I was flying over the endless
expanse of the frozen Arctic Ocean, warm and snug in the oxygen-filled cabin.


A vast white plain, glittering like diamonds in the sunlight, the sea ice had jammed and split, and there
were long leads of open water. My mission was to chart the easiest route toward the Pole, so the sleds
would lose no time detouring around leads or scrambling over ridges. Once a weather observation camp
was established, I would carry in supplies in the plane.


Hundreds of thousands of square miles of the enormous sea of ice had never been seen by man. Earth's
last real home of mystery was dazzlingly beautiful but it was murderous, terrifying, sinister...