Ancient Science
The frozen stillness in Valhalla was appalling. Aesir nobles and warriors all seemed turned to stone as they stared at the golden cylinder hanging from my neck. I could hear the torches guttering, the snap of logs on the blazing hearth, and the dull moan of the sea wind around Valhalla's lofty eaves. It was as though the feast of the Aesir had been smitten by chill terror.
"Where did you get that key, Jarl Keith?" Odin asked me hoarsely.
"Why, my comrades fished it out of the sea beyond the ice-pack — beyond Niffleheim," I answered bewilderedly.
A deep groan went up from the entire gathering. I turned to them unhappily, feeling like a hunted animal that knows it has done no wrong, yet still is persecuted.
"Why did you bring it into this land?" Odin demanded fiercely.
"I don't know," I blurted. Remembering the queer alien hunch that had made me find the key, I added: "Some strange whim in my mind told me where it was and warned me not to throw it away."
"Loki's work!" Odin whispered. "The evil one has cast forces abroad that have brought back the rune key that will set him free."
Thor's face flamed crimson as he sprang to his feet, clutching his mighty weapon.
"The arch-traitor still seeks to ruin Asgard and the Aesir!" he roared in overpowering rage. "Oh, that I could bring Miolnir down upon his skull this moment!"
"Even your strength and mighty weapon would fail against the dark science of Loki," Odin said somberly.
I looked down bewilderedly at the gold cylinder hanging on my chest. Into my mind flashed the last lines of the rune-rhyme graven on it.
While I lie far,
The Aesir safe are.
Bring me not home
Lest Ragnarok come.
Those lines seemed to throb in my mind like a beating drum of black, dire menace that cannot be seen yet can be felt.
"I do not understand, lord Odin," I faltered. "Have I done wrong in bringing this small and apparently harmless key into your land?"
"Because you brought it," Odin stated, calm at last, "we are threatened with doom. A terrible menace has been a shadow over us for all these long centuries. That is the key which alone can loose the evil traitor Loki, who long has been prisoned."
When he saw me pale at his words, his deep, heavy voice rumbled comfortingly through the frozen silence.
"It is not your fault, Jarl Keith. I see it all now. It was Loki's power that brought you and the rune key here. Yes, from the gloomy prison where his body lies helpless, Loki's mind reached forth through his deep craft of scientific powers. He caused you to fish that rune key from the sea, and raised the storm that blew you hither. Aye, and it was to take from you the key that would free their dark lord that the Jotuns attacked you when you arrived."
"But who is Loki?" I asked bewilderedly. "In the old myths of the northland, there was a tale of a traitor by that name, who sought to destroy you—"
"Aye, a black traitor was accursed Loki!" shouted Thor. "The shame and the curse of the Aesir, since first he was born."
"Aye, traitor he was, indeed," said Odin somberly. "Yet long ago, when we dwelt in the underworld of Muspelheim, Loki was the most honored of the Aesir, next to myself. Handsome, valiant, cunning, and learned, he was second only to me among the Aesir. But Loki, the greatest scientist of my people, longed for power. His experiments endangered us all, time and again. Finally, against my orders, Loki brought catastrophe on our great and lovely underworld."
"Then Loki was the scientist you told me of!" I exclaimed. "He kindled the atomic fires of Muspelheim and nearly destroyed you!"
Odin nodded. "Loki was that rash scientist of whom I spoke. Seeking to kindle a radiation that would keep us ever young, he touched off atomic fires that engulfed Muspelheim and forced us to flee to this upper world. I should have punished Loki then for his reckless disobedience. But I did not, because the flood of radiation would keep us almost immortal in this land. Instead I warned him that nobody must tamper further with the raving atomic fires below.
"Loki agreed to tamper no more with those awful forces. But his promise was worth nothing. Secretly, here in Asgard, he traveled back into fiery Muspelheim, and began experimenting again. He hoped to forge such tremendous weapons from those forces that he could displace me as ruler of the Aesir and conquer all Earth. My son Baldur discovered Loki's forbidden researches in deep Muspelheim. To prevent Baldur from exposing him, Loki slew him. But he had already exposed himself.
"Loki fled from Asgard. Taking with him his two hideous pets, the wolf Fenris and the Midgard snake, he fled to dark Jotunheim. There he allied himself with the brutal Jotuns. He knew they hated the Aesir, so he incited them to attack us, promising that with his scientific powers, he would help them conquer and sack Asgard.
"That was the time of which I told you, Jarl Keith, when surprise and treachery almost enabled the Jotuns to conquer us. The Jotuns, led by Loki and aided by the hellish forces his science devised, would have overcome us had I not used my own scientific powers to defeat Loki's and had we not all fought valiantly. We repelled the Jotuns with great slaughter."
Thor grinned and nodded, but his giant face reddened with hatred as Odin continued.
"Defeated, Loki fled with his wolf and serpent into the labyrinth of caves in Midgard. We followed him to the cave in which he hid, but Loki, in his extremity, bargained cunningly for his life. Loki called out to us: 'I have an instrument which can destroy all Asgard and the Aesir, by loosing the sea upon the atomic fires of Muspelheim. Unless you agree to spare my life, I will use that secret and you will all perish with me.'"
"'We agree then to spare your life, Loki,' I answered. 'You have our pledge, if you surrender that deadly instrument.' Loki surrendered the instrument to me. And then I told him: 'We agreed to spare your life, Loki — but that is all! Though you shall remain alive, you will no longer be a menace to us, for we shall prison you eternally in this cave to which you fled.'
"And we did that to Loki, Jarl Keith. We cast him into a state of suspended animation by filling his cave with a gas whose scientific secret I had discovered. That gas paralyzed the functions of the body by freezing, but left the mind conscious as ever. Into that waking, frozen sleep we cast Loki and his two hideous pets. Then we closed that cave forever with a door that was not of metal or stone, but of invulnerable force.
"That wall of energy was a screen of vibrations controlled by the generator inside a tiny projector. You, Jarl Keith, have that projector — the rune key! Only the rune key can unlock the door of Loki's cave-prison. Until it is unlocked, Loki must lie there with his two dreadful familiars in suspended animation.
"But though Loki's body lies frozen, his mind is awake and active, and he seeks by mental forces to free himself. We had given the wardership of the rune key to Odur, husband of Freya, one of our greatest jarls. Loki's mind worked from afar upon Odur by telepathic command, attempting to force the keeper of the key to release Loki.
"Fearing that Loki's telepathic orders might some day succeed, I commanded Odur to take the rune key and travel to the great ocean far outside icy Niffleheim, and fling it into the deepest sea. Then, I thought, Loki would not be able to bring the key back into Asgard, and would never manage to escape his doom. Odur took the rune key and went beyond the ice of Niffleheim, and flung the key into the ocean as I bade.
"But before he could return across the ice, Odur and his wife Freya and their party were lost. I think now that they reached the lands of your outer world, and that their tales of the Aesir and Asgard started the myths you mentioned, Jarl Keith. But we thought ourselves safe, with the rune key resting in the ocean deeps far outside Asgard.
"For even did a stranger chance to find the key in some future day, the runes upon it would warn him. In case he could not read the runes, the key was constructed to telepath a constant thought message. He would receive a constant mental warning to get rid of the key."
"So that's why I felt that sensation of ominous warning, after I first touched the key!" I muttered.
"That is why," Odin replied gravely; "And yet you, Jarl Keith, were influenced by the even stronger commands of Loki. You kept the key, and brought it back into Asgard. And now Loki, through his allies, the Jotuns, will seek to get the rune key from us, to use it to free himself. And if Loki is ever freed again, he will lead the hosts of Jotunheim once more against Asgard. And it might well be that Asgard falls, that the Aesir perish!"
I listened in horror. Not for a moment did I doubt Odin was telling the truth. The ancient science of these Aesir, though neglecting mechanical discoveries for which they had little need, had clearly surpassed us in the study of the subtlest forces of the Universe.
Yes, I knew now what the two contending, alien voices in my mind had been. The constant telepathic warning of the rune key projector itself — and the more powerful mental command of dreaded Loki!
"I did not know, lord Odin," I declared with sincere regret. "Had I dreamed that the rune key was what it really is, I'd never have brought it here."
"You had no way of knowing, Jarl Keith," he answered. "And the attempt of Loki has failed. The Jotuns he sent to take the key failed in their task, and we still hold it."
I took the little gold cylinder from around my neck and handed it to him. The instant I parted with it, I felt relieved of that throbbing, warning sensation which had incessantly oppressed me. Odin took the key. While all in Valhalla watched, he solemnly handed it to the wide-eyed Freya.
"Your grandfather was keeper of the key, Freya, and the office descends to you," the Aesir king stated. "You shall hold it until we take council and decide what to do with it."
"Couldn't you just destroy the thing?" I asked.
Odin shook his head. "You know little of our science, outland Jarl. The projector in the rune key maintains the energy screen that bars Loki's cave-prison. Destroying the key would destroy that screen. Let no fear enter your hearts, men of the Aesir. Loki is still prisoned, and shall remain so. Not yet has the hour come when the evil one shall escape."
A fierce roar of shouts crashed from the throng, as their swords and axes flashed high in the torchlight.
"Our swords for Asgard!"
"It is well," Odin said with somber pride. "Now let this feast of ill omen end. Heimdall, keep closest watch on Asgard's gates tonight. Loki's mind knows the key is here, and he might telepathically incite the Jotuns to attack us and secure it. And you, Frey, see that your castle is well guarded, to protect your kinswoman and the key."
Freya stood fingering the cord of the rune key. She looked at me with wordless, troubled appeal as she left. I followed her into the night.
The eldritch faint green glow of the streaming, tingling radiation clung to the towering castles. No aurora was visible, for that streamed up outside the blind spot. A haggard Moon was shining through flying storm clouds. The driving north wind wailed keen and cold. From far below came the dim, distant booming of the surf as the stormy ocean dashed against the cliffs. Freya turned toward me, her eyes dark and big.
"Jarl Keith, I am afraid!" she whispered. "I, who never knew fear before, am fearful now. If Loki is loosed—"
"There's no chance of that, while you and your people hold the key," I encouraged her. "And even if he were set free, he is only one man."
"He is evil itself." She shuddered. "I never saw Loki. Long centuries before my birth, he was prisoned. But I have heard the tales of the other Aesir. I know that, in their secret hearts, they still dread Loki and his dark powers."
She was trembling like a wind-shaken leaf. I put my arm protectingly around her, and she shivered closer to me in the moonlight. Even the dread that I, too, was feeling could not keep my blood from racing as I looked down at her lovely face. Freya of the White Hands, daughter of the goddess of long ago, Viking maid of the Aesir — I held her in my arms!
I kissed her. As I held her close against my mail coat, the chill wind blew her bright hair across my face.
"Jarl Keith!" she whispered wonderingly.
"Freya," I breathed, "I have never loved any woman before, and I never met you until this day. But now—"
She did not answer me with words. She put her small, strong hands behind my head and drew my lips down again to hers. I felt strangely shaken when I raised my head again. We heard a cough. Frey stood in the pale light near us, regarding us with a half-smile.
"I'll go with my lady Gerda to our castle, kinswoman," he said gently. "No doubt the Jarl Keith would be willing to escort you thither."
When he and Gerda had gone, we followed slowly. My mailed arm was around Freya's slim waist as we walked through the silent, moonlit streets of Asgard. She led me toward the castle on the eastern edge of Asgard. Behind us, Valhalla towered vast and gloomy against the stormy sky. Far to our left gleamed the incredible arch of Bifrost.
"Beloved, I feel armed now against even Loki," whispered Freya happily.
"And I fear only that this is a dream from which I shall awake," I breathed.
We were approaching the dark bulk of the castle that crouched squat and massive on the sheer cliff. A half-dozen blond Aesir warriors were approaching us in the moonlight When they were but a few yards from us, they suddenly drew their swords. Their leader called to them in a fierce undertone.
"That is Freya. She has the key. Seize her, and kill the man!"