Legendary 12

Autorentext
Michael Dahl, the author of more than a dozen non?ction books, has also published poetry and plays. The Viking Claw is Dahl's fourth Finnegan Zwake mystery. The earlier titles in the series are The Horizontal Man, The Worm Tunnel, and The Ruby Raven. Dahl is also the author of Scooter Spies, a series of mysteries for younger readers, whose titles include The Wheels That Vanished and The Ghost That Barked. A theater director, actor, and comedian in Minneapolis, Dahl has a wide variety of unusual creatures in his household: Venus's-?ytraps, ?ddler crabs, African dwarf frogs, an elementary school teacher, and an Australian red-heeler named Gus. He can be e-mailed at ?nnswake@aol.com.

Klappentext

Born with a thirst for adventure, Prince Jacob does not heed his parents' warnings and ventures into the Forbidden Forest. Unfortunately for him, he accidentally tampers with the magical seal and releases evil back into the world. When the twelve diamonds and the jade centre that make up the seal are scattered across the world, the prince's father, the Jade Emperor, has no way of containing the Dark Forces, which affect the human race only and not the animals. The Jade Emperor decides that Earth must be destroyed. Wanting to undo the terrible fate that he has unleashed on Earth, Prince Jacob begs his father for a chance to find the diamonds and jade, restore the magical seal and banish the Dark Forces. The Jade Emperor knows that Prince Jacob cannot do this alone, but there is no way of knowing which humans have been corrupted by the Dark Forces. He organises a Great Race to find the bravest animals on Earth to help Prince Jacob restore peace to the world. This story not only tells the legend of how the twelve animals came to be part of the Chinese zodiac, but it is also the first tale in the Legendary 12 series.

Zusammenfassung
Finn," he said, "Don't go in."
What was his problem? After days of climbing and trudging through the snow, I wasn't going to turn around now. I pushed past Uncle Stoppard into the cave and then froze. The murky light from the mouth of the tunnel gleamed on something a few feet in front of me. Something white lay on the floor of the cave. Bones.
Finn and his mystery-writer uncle head to Iceland in search of the Haunted City of Tquuli, where Finn's archaeologist parents were last seen before their odd disappearance eight years ago. Finn doesn't believe the creepy legends about the Haunted City and the ancient Vikings who lived there -- until a member of the rock-climbing expedition vanishes from inside a sleeping bag...one that was dangling a hundred feet from the base of an icy cliff!
Then another climber disappears, leaving a trail of footprints that abruptly end in a Þeld of snow. Is it modern-day murder, or the revenge of phantom Viking warriors?

Leseprobe
Chapter One: Thor's Mountain

Ping, ping.

Uncle Stoppard tightened his seat belt. He turned to me and said, "That's the five-thousand-foot signal."

Through the plane window I saw a vast field of greenish-blue water. We were descending over the Atlantic Ocean. I squashed my face against the clear plastic and stretched my eyeballs to get a glimpse of our destination. A brown shore of jagged jigsaw pieces was rushing toward us. Farther away the sun was rising over dark, sharp-edged mountains. Volcano country.

"You should put that away," said Uncle Stoppard. "If we have a bumpy landing, those papers will fly all over the cabin."

He was referring to my journal. Ever since we took off from the Minneapolis airport, six hours ago, I had held the journal on my lap. It was my dad's idea. Like father, like Finn, says Uncle Stop.

Last year I had discovered my dad's journal in Uncle Stoppard's storage room in the basement. It had been sitting down there for the past eight years, ever since Mom and Dad had dropped me off with Uncle Stop before they flew to Iceland, hunting for the Haunted City of Tquuli. You say it too-cool-ee. Maybe you read about my parents' expedition; it was written up in Peephole magazine. Legends say that Tquuli is the site of a lost Viking colony hidden somewhere in the mountains of Iceland. On the slope of one of those mountains, the Thorsfell, my parents' footprints ended abruptly in a field of new snow. Just ended! When I first started living with Uncle Stoppard, I would think about those footprints and my parents all the time. Now I only think about them every day.

My parents went searching for Tquuli because they were archeologists. I mean, are archeologists. I mean, both. Both are both. They're considered legally dead since they've been missing so long, but they're still alive. Don't ask me how I know, I just know.

Dad kept a detailed record in his journal of the archeological digs he and my mom worked on around the world. I thought it would be a good idea to keep my own record of everything that happens to me and Uncle Stoppard in Iceland. So far my journal has maps of Iceland, articles from newspapers about mountain climbing, copied sections of library books on footprints, fingerprints, and physical evidence. The Peephole magazine article about the Zwake-Tquuli expedition is taped to the front three pages. I practically have it memorized. The most important (and weirdest) paragraphs come near the end of the article:

Two weeks after radio contact had failed for the fifth time, a second expedition was launched. Its mission was to discover not Tquuli, but the missing Zwake party, and time was of the essence. Winter had arrived in the north Atlantic, dropping the temperatures well below zero. Expert trackers from Reykjavik and Myvatn retraced Anna and Leon Zwake's route up the sloping side of Thor's Mountain. Luckily, no rain or snow had fallen since the Americans had last radioed their friends from the famous volcano cone....

A black-and-white photo shows the extinct volcano Thorsfell, Thor's Mountain: a massive black triangle with snow covering the upper half. Thor was the ancient god of thunder and lightning. In the comics he has long blond hair and looks like a member of the World Wrestling Federation. The ancient Icelanders thought Thor lived inside the mountain since the volcano flashed and rumbled like a thunderstorm. A caption below the photo says: Thorsfell, the Fujiyama of the Vikings. Fujiyama is a famous mountain in Japan. I guess the two mountains look alike.

The next paragraphs still spook me when I read them:

...On the third day of the expedition, the Icelandic trackers found the Zwake camp. Tents were empty, but there was no sign of panic or trouble. Sleeping bags were neatly laid out. Food sat abandoned on cold, tin dinner plates. A man's pipe was found tipped on its side, resting on a small camping table, as if it shortly expected its owner to return. No sign of the American archeologists anywhere.

Except for a pair of footprints in the snow.

The footprints, the only ones found at the site, are believed to have belonged to the Zwakes since they begin at their tent. The prints then leave the site, heading up the steep slope in a straight line. As the prints approach the base of a flat, smooth cliff wall, known locally as Thor's Navel, they vanish. There are no other prints nearby, nor any disturbances in the smooth, month-old snow. The trackers said it looked as if the Zwakes had been lifted up into the air.

No explanation exists for the bizarre disappearance of Anna and Leon Zwake. Or for the disappearance of the other four members of their party. The Zwake Tquuli Expedition will be listed in future history books along with the unknown fates of Amelia Earhart, D. B. Cooper, and the crew of the Marie Celeste.

Lifted up into the air. Helicopters? UFOs? In a few days I'd be standing and staring at Thor's Navel with my own eyes. Not a photo, but the real deal. I could …