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' expediti ... read full excerpt from Viking Claw ebook