Edmond Hamilton - The Monsters of Juntonheim

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The Monsters of Juntonheim

Edmond Hamilton

http://www.blackmask.com

Chapter I. The Rune Key Chapter II. Mystery Land Chapter III. Jotun and Aesir Chapter IV. Odin

Speaks Chapter V. Shadow of Loki Chapter VI. Ancient Science Chapter VII. Ambush! Chapter VIII.

World of Gnomes Chapter IX. Loki's Prison Chapter X. Captive in Jotunheim Chapter XI. The

Arch-fiend Chapter XII. The Laboratory Chapter XIII. Flight and Death Chapter XIV. Thor's Oath

Chapter XV. The Fire World Chapter XVI. The Flame Creatures Chapter XVII. Magic Science

Chapter XVIII. The Battle for Asgard Chapter XIX. Swords Athirst Chapter XX. Ragnarok Epilogue

Chapter I. The Rune Key

Bray called excitedly to me from the forward deck of the schooner.

Keith, your hunch was right. There's something queer in this trawl!

Involuntarily I shuddered in the sudden chill of fear. Somehow I had known that the trawl would bring

something up from the icy Arctic sea. Pure intuition had made me persuade Bray to lower his trawl in

this unpromising spot.

Coming, Bray! I called, and hurried through the litter of sleds and snarling dogs.

Our schooner, the sturdy auxiliary ice-breaker Peter Saul, was lying at anchor in the Lincoln Sea, only

four hundred miles south of the Pole. A hundred yards away, the dazzling white fields of ice stretched

northward a vast, frozen, scarcely explored waste.

When we had reached the ice pack the night before, I had somehow conceived the idea that Bray, the

oceanographer, ought to try his luck here. Bray had laughed at my hunch at first, but had finally

consented.

Are you psychic, Keith? he demanded. Look what the trawl brought up!

A heavy, ancient-looking gold cylinder, about eight inches long, was sticking out of the frozen mud. On

its sides were engraved a row of queer symbols, almost worn away.

What in the world is it? I breathed. And what are those letters on it?

Halsen, a big, bearded Norwegian sailor, answered me.

Those letters are in my own language, sir.

Nonsense, I said sharply. I know Norwegian pretty well. Those letters are not in your language.

Not the one my people write today, Halsen explained, but the old Norse the rune writing. I have seen

such writing on old stones in the museum at Oslo.

Norse runes? I blurted. Then this must be damned ancient.

Let's take it down to Dubman, Bray suggested. He ought to be able to tell us.

Dubman, the waspish little archaeologist of the expedition, looked up in annoyance from his collection of

Eskimo arrowheads when we entered. Angrily he took the cylinder and glared at it. Instantly his eyes lit

up behind the thick spectacles.

Old Norse! he exclaimed. But these are runes of the most ancient form pre-Valdstenan! What is it?

Maybe the runes on it can give us a clue, I said eagerly.

I'll soon find out what they mean, Dubman declared.

With a magnifying glass, he began to examine the symbols graven on the golden cylinder. Bray and I

waited. I felt queerly taut. I could not understand just why I was so excited about this find, but

everything about it had been queer. A persistent inner voice had kept telling me: Make Bray let down

his trawl here! And the first time it was lowered, it had brought up a gold tube that must have lain on the

sea-floor for centuries.

Got it! Dubman stated, looking up. This thing is old, all right the most ancient form of runic. The

translation doesn't tell much. Listen to this

Rune key am I,

Chaining dark evil,

Midgard snake, Fenris,

And Loki, arch-devil.

While I lie far,

The Aesir safe are,

Bring me not home,

Lest Ragnarok come.

A chill rippled through me, as though even the translation of those ancient runes could terrify me.

Impatiently I shook off the feeling.

What does all that stuff about the Aesir and Loki mean? I asked.

The Aesir were the ancient Norse gods, eternally youthful and powerful. Ruled by Odin, they lived in

the fabled city of Asgard. Loki turned against them. With his two familiars, the monstrous wolf Fenris

and the great Midgard serpent, Loki joined the Jotuns, the giant enemies of the gods. The gods finally

managed to chain Loki, his wolf and his serpent. But it was predicted that if Loki ever broke his bonds,

that would bring about Ragnarok the doom of the Aesir.

Bring me not home, lest Ragnarok come, he quoted. This key claims to be the one with which Loki

and his pets were locked up. Probably some ancient Norse priest made it to 'prove' the old myths, was

shipwrecked and lost it in the sea.

I don't get it, Bray complained. What made you tell me to let down my trawl in just that spot, Keith?

When I picked up the gold cylinder, a current of queer power ran up my arm. Somehow it seemed to

warn me to drop it back into the sea. But I didn't obey, for something alien commanded me to keep the

rune key.

Can I study this for a few days? I asked abruptly. I'll take good care of it.

I didn't know you had archaeological tastes, Masters, Dubman said, astonished. But you were

responsible for finding it, so you can keep it awhile. Don't lose it, though, or I'll skin you.

Through the little ring on one end of the cylinder, I passed a cord and hung it around my neck. It was

cold against my skin cold and menacing, persistently warning...

Naturally I tried to convince myself that I just wasn't the superstitious type. Besides my thirty years of

disciplining myself to examine even obvious truths, and my towering height of lean muscle, I have

inherited the canny skepticism of my Scottish ancestors. Anyhow, a scientist couldn't admit the existence

of the supernatural. Like most other physicists, I claimed there were still a lot of forces which science

hasn't had time to investigate yet. When it does, there will be no room for superstition, for belief in the

supernatural is merely ignorance of natural laws.

But I worked twice as hard as anybody else, unloading our small rocket plane for my first

reconnaissance flight northward. Not even intense physical labor could make me forget the sinister cold

force of the rune key inside my shirt, though.

The menacing current felt even stronger when I stood on deck that night. Overhead, the aurora borealis

pulsated in shifting bars and banners of unearthly radiance, changing the immense frozen ocean from

white to green, violet and crimson. Like a mad musician, the freezing wind strummed the schooner's

halyards and made the masts boom out their deep voices.

But the rune key under my shirt tormented me with its conflicting demands. It ordered me to throw it

back to the icy waters. Helpless, I ripped it out and tugged at the cord, trying to snap it. An even

stronger command made me put it back.

The moment I buttoned my shirt, I cursed myself for being a fool. Why should I want to destroy

something of potential value to science? Inwardly, though, I realized that the demands of the rune key

were stronger than my own will.

It can be explained scientifically, I muttered uneasily. Everything has a scientific explanation, once we

can isolate it.

But how could a small, golden cylinder penetrate my mind and order it about like a servant? What filled

my heart with doubt and dread?

For all my canny skepticism and scientific training, I couldn't answer those insistent questions, nor keep

myself from being tormented by the damned thing...

Chapter II. Mystery Land

It was a brilliant Arctic morning. The sun glittered on the white ice-pack, the placid grey sea and the

battered hull of the Peter Saul. I was ready for my first reconnaissance flight northward. Doctor John

Carrul, chief of the expedition, called down to me from the rail of the schooner.

Don't go too far the first trip, Masters. And return at once if the weather grows threatening.

There won't be any storms for days, I replied confidently. I know Arctic weather.

You'd better leave that rune key with me, Dubman shrilled. I'd hate to lose it if you cracked up.

During the past few days, the golden cylinder hadn't been out of my thoughts. Whatever menacing force

radiated from the key, it was still far beyond my science. I had tested it with electroscopes, but they

registered nothing. Yet it did radiate some disturbing force. It was the same with the mental command

that fought the one which tried to make me throw away the key. Apparently supernatural or not, it had

to have some rational, mundane explanation.

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...

Absorbed in keeping the plane on its course and making a map of the ice below, my sense of time was

temporarily paralyzed. The rocket motor roared tirelessly, and the ice unrolled endlessly below. When

my ship lurched sharply, I abruptly realized that the wind was suddenly rising. I looked around, startled.

A huge dark wall was rising across the southern horizon.

Damn it, I'll never call myself a weather prophet again, I swore. There just couldn't be any storm. But

there it is!

I banked around sharply and flew southward, fighting to rise above the fury. But the higher I climbed, the

higher the black, boiling wall of the storm seemed to rise. I knew I was caught.

Two minutes to live, I gritted. It'll be a fast death

Driving before it a cloud of stinging snow, the storm smacked my plane like a giant hand. Stunned by the

impact, deafened, I swung the nose around and let the wind sweep the plane northward. There was no

hope of fighting. I could only run before the gale until its fury subsided. The whole sky was dark and

raging around me, filled with screaming wind and snow. Gripping the firing wheel, I battled to keep the

reeling plane in the air.

But why did the rune key inside my shirt seem to throb with frantic warning? Why did that alien voice in

my mind seem eager and exultant? Why did I feel there was something purposeful about this gale's

direction? The storm had come up suddenly out of a clear sky as soon as my plane was well in the air.

Now it was hurling me straight in one direction.

The imminent peril of death grew less unnerving than the mounting suspicion that there was something

deliberate about the storm. The warning force throbbing from the rune key, and the wildly exultant alien

voice in my brain, combined to demoralize me.

After nearly six hours of ceaseless storm-driven flight, I received the greatest shock. Peering ahead

through the frosted cabin windows, I realized suddenly that there was a great area dead ahead which I

could not see!

It can't be real! I gasped. A colossal blind spot

My vision seemed to slide around that vast area. I could see the ice-pack beyond it, scores of miles

away. I could see the ice on either side of it. But the area itself just didn't register.

Some trick of refraction, perhaps due to the terrestrial magnetic currents that are strong here, I

muttered. Maybe it's connected with the mystery of the aurora.

My scientific reasoning didn't quiet my nerves. For the storm that bore me on was carrying me straight

toward that huge blind spot. When I was almost to the edge of the enigmatic area my vision seemed to

slide away to either side, almost at right angles. If this was refraction, it was a type that was completely

unknown to science.

My storm-tossed plane hurtled with reckless speed toward the edge of the vast blind spot; I could see

nothing whatever ahead. Everything seemed crazily twisted out of focus, distorted by that weird wall.

Abruptly the gale flung my reeling plane directly through the fantastic wall that defied my vision and I

was inside the blind spot! But now I could not see outside it.

This this is impossible! I gasped with startled terror.

I could see nothing but the interior, a great space of tossing ocean, curving ominously to every sinister

horizon. Black waves, black clouds ... Suddenly I gasped in amazement. Far ahead loomed a long, high

mass of forbidding, dark land.

The storm still howled with all its original fury, carrying me dangerously low over the foam-fanged waves

toward the distant land. Through the scudding snow, I detected a faint greenish radiance. But realization

of my immediate peril swept away my demoralization. I could not land in that vicious sea. Yet neither

could I climb again in that gale.

The land I had glimpsed was now a mile ahead of me, its frowning eastern cliffs stretching right across

my course. The gray precipices were hundreds of feet high. Above them, the land ran back into dark

forests and shaggy wooded hills where no landing was possible. Then I saw a small beach strewn with

boulders. Pure desperation made me head the plane toward it.

Over the boiling white hell of breakers I shot. My wheels touched the beach. Before I could brake with

the forward jets, the port window smashed against a projecting boulder. But that was the only damage

when I stopped out of reach of the waves.

I shut off the rocket motor and stumbled out of the ship. My knees were trembling with the reaction of

prolonged tenseness. But the land and sea inside the incredible blind spot made me forget my exhaustion.

The air was keenly cold. It was the cold of an ordinary northern spring, though, not the bitter polar chill it

should have been. The sky was dark with clouds, fleeing before the gale. The boom of raging surf and

keen of wailing winds were loud in my ears. Stranger even than the comparative warmth was the faint

green radiance that seemed to pervade the air. An eldritch glow that could barely be seen, it seemed to

stream upward from the ground. It was oddly exhilarating.

Might be gamma radiation from some unknown source, I reasoned. That may account for the

refraction that makes this whole area a blind spot. I wish I had instruments here to check. Hope it

doesn't have the usual effects of gamma radiation on human tissue. But it seems invigorating.

Excitement began to rise in me. I had found a hidden land of strange warmth completely unknown to

civilization, here in the polar wastes. Its strange trick of refraction had defied discovery until now. No

scientist could have been dropped in that blind spot without feeling the urge to explore. Waiting for the

storm to die down, flying out of the blind area and getting back to the ship for a regular exploration party

would have been wiser. But like every other man, I had the desire to be first in an unknown land.

I moored the plane between two boulders and removed my flying togs to don regulation exploring

clothes for Arctic weather. With a pack of food pellets and blankets on my back, I began to climb the

jagged, craggy wall.

Gasping for breath, I reached the rim of the lofty cliffs. Cold sea winds buffeted me, and the boom of

bursting breakers came muffledly from below. Harshly screaming sea-gulls soared and circled around

me.

To my right lay the edge of the cliffs. To my left, a strip of heather ended in a forest of fir trees, bending

in the wind. Beyond the dark fir forest, shaggy, wooded hills rose steeply. Toward the south lay the

greater part of the land, rising into higher forested hills. It was a wild northern landscape, bleak, harsh,

inhospitable. Yet somehow I relished being alone among screaming winds and gulls, and booming surf,

and groaning trees.

I stared at the towering little island I had glimpsed. Its cliffs rose sheer from the green sea for a thousand

feet. Its flat top was on a level with the mainland, and separated from it only by a narrow, deep chasm

through which the ocean surged.

But upon the island itself rose massed gray towers buildings! Great castles stood out boldly against the

gray, tossing sky, grouped into an amazing city on the small plateau. From the island to the mainland

sprang the arch of a stupendous bridge. The flying bow of stone soared up and out for hundreds of feet.

Painted in brilliant red and blue and yellow, it gleamed like a fixed rainbow.

A rainbow bridge, leading to the high eyrie of great gray castles! Into my mind rushed the stupefying

memory of the legends I had read so recently Asgard, the fabled city of the Norse gods the rainbow

bridge that connected their abode with Midgard.

Was I looking upon the city of the Aesir? Impossible! Yet this place was real...

Chapter III. Jotun and Aesir

A cry in the unhuman uproar startled me. I whirled around. A horse and rider were charging along the

edge of the cliff, coming from the south.

Good Lord! I gasped. Must everything be like a dream?

The rider of that charging black steed was a young woman, but like none I had ever seen before. She

wore a winged metal helmet, beneath which her bright yellow hair streamed like flame in the wind. Blue

eyes flared hatred out of a beautiful, angry face. Her dress was a gleaming brynja, or coat of ringed

mail, over a kirtle. Her white knees were bare, gripping the saddle. As she urged her mount down upon

me, a straight, light sword flashed in her hand.

You dare spy upon Asgard, Jotun dog! she cried fiercely in a language that was remarkably close to

Norwegian. Death for that!

Then that high eyrie of great gray castles was Asgard, home of the legendary Aesir! And this wrathful

Viking maid took me for a Jotun, one of the race who were mortal enemies of the Aesir! Was I

dreaming all this, or had I actually stumbled somehow into the land of ancient Viking legend?

Then I woke to realization of my peril. As the woman's sword stabbed toward my breast, I ducked

under it. I felt the blade scream above my head as her horse thundered past. Swiftly I reached up and

grabbed her outstretched mail-clad arm. My hold tore her from the saddle.

The sword flew from her grasp as she fell. But she was up and darting toward it in a single motion. I

leaped after her and caught her before she could reach the weapon. She fought like a tigress. The

strength of her slender, mail-clad body was amazing. Her small fist struck my mouth furiously.

Scum of Jotunheim! she hissed. I finally succeeded in pinning her arms to her sides. Her white face,

inches away from my own, was blazing with rage, her sea-blue eyes stormy in wild anger. She was

beautiful, with a vibrant loveliness like that of a tempest. Her helmeted, golden head came only to my

chin, but her blue eyes glared into mine without a trace of fear.

You'll dangle from the walls of Asgard for daring to lay hands on me, Jotun! she snapped.

She spoke a strangely antique form of the Norwegian tongue. I answered in the Norwegian I knew.

Why did you try to kill me? I asked. I'm not your enemy.

You are a Jotun, an enemy to the Aesir, she declared. You have the dark hair of a true Jotun dog,

even though you have chosen to dress in outlandish garments. And you dared spy on Asgard!

In the old legends, I remembered, the mighty Aesir had been fair-haired. Their mortal enemies, the

Jotuns, had been dark-haired.

I am no Jotun, I said earnestly. I have but newly come to this land, from far across the outer ice.

She laughed scornfully. Do you think I believe that you have come from beyond frozen Niffleheim?

Your lie is not even clever. Why do you delay in killing me? Death is preferable to your touch, Jotun.

And the death of Freya will soon be avenged.

Freya? I gasped.

This woman was Freya, whom the old Vikings had worshipped Freya of the white hands, loveliest of

the Aesir? It was impossible! She was real, warm, panting with hate as she sought to free herself. Yet

she had spoken of Asgard. That distant eyrie of gray castle was Asgard, just as the legends had

described it, even to the flying rainbow bridge that connected it with the mainland.

I can't understand, Freya, I faltered, still holding her. My name is Keith Masters. I came from beyond

the ice Niffleheim, as you call it.

For a moment, doubt softened her stony blue eyes. Then she looked past me, and they became bitter

and hate-filled again.

You need lie no longer. Here are your Jotun comrades now, come to help you.

I turned, appalled. Eight men were approaching stealthily, after tethering their horses at the edge of the

forest. They were taller even than I. Their hair was black as mine, and hung down in shaggy locks from

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TheMonstersofJuntonheimEdmondHamiltonThispagecopyright©2004BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.comChapterI.TheRuneKeyChapterII.MysteryLandChapterIII.JotunandAesirChapterIV.OdinSpeaksChapterV.ShadowofLokiChapterVI.AncientScienceChapterVII.Ambush!ChapterVIII.WorldofGnomesChapterIX.Loki'sPrisonChapter...

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