Hours must have passed as we sat in a heavy, hopeless silence. The Sun was setting through the slowly thickening mists of Jotunheim, casting a pale beam onto the stone floor. There was a rattle at the lock of our door. It opened, and a big, fierce-eyed Jotun captain stood glaring at us. Behind him were a dozen guards.
"You, outlander," said the captain to me. "Come with us. Our lord Loki would speak to you."
'What does Loki want with me?" I demanded, rising painfully to my feet.
"Is it for me or for you, outland dog, to question the reasons of our lord?" roared the captain. "Come, or be dragged!"
I pressed Freya's hand and went with the guards. In a gloomy, stone corridor, they bared their swords to cut me down if I attempted escape or resistance. The door of the cell was barred again, and two of the Jotuns took their places outside it. The others marched me away.
The dank chill of the passage struck me to the marrow. But I felt a greater chill of dread at this summons from Loki. I was going to face the arch-traitor who had waked for his final most vicious revenge…
Chapter XI
The Arch-fiend
We passed through gloomy corridors and chambers of age-old stone, crusted with evil-looking white fungi and lichens, dripping with condensed vapor. Rats squeaked across our path unheeded. Up broad stairs of troglodytic hugeness, we climbed into the upper levels of the massive palace. Everywhere we met soldiers and thralls hurrying to and fro, carrying piles of spears and arrows, stacks of shields, and other war supplies.
Tense preparations for the attack on Asgard were unceasingly going on through the whole palace and city. The Jotun captain led us through another corridor, to the edge of a large, poorly lit hall.
"Wait," he barked, stopping. "Our lord is not finished with Princess Hel."
"What are they doing?" I asked, awed. "What kind of machinery is that?"
"Silence, outlander!" snapped the captain.
I stood among my guards, staring at the amazing scene that was taking place. The hall into which I looked was of great dimensions, its roof supported by a forest of massive stone pillars. The only illumination came from pale shafts of daylight that trembled down from small, high, slit-windows, as though afraid to enter this dark place. White wisps of fog still swirled amid the pillars, like homeless ghosts idly drifting.
On a raised stone platform at one end of the hall, in a massive throne carved of black rock, sat Loki. His bright golden hair glittering in the gloom, and the flashing mail he wore made him seem a figure of living light. Beside his throne, mighty head between its paws, lay the monster wolf Fenris. The Midgard snake I did not see.
Loki's beautiful face was intent, his graceful form leaning forward. Beside his throne stood the big, black-haired Jotun king Utgar, and the darkly beautiful Hel, princess of Jotunheim. They were staring into an unfamiliar-looking mechanism whose complexities of glowing wires and glass rods were partly hidden by a metal cover. On the cover, though, was a square quartz screen that reproduced a living scene.
"See, lord Loki, the picture clears!" cried Hel.
"I see, too," Utgar roared. "It is Asgard!"
"Aye, it is Asgard," said Loki in his wonderfully sweet voice, his eyes brooding as he peered into the screen. "Behold, the nobles of the Aesir are gathered in Valhalla for council. We shall hear them."
Loki touched another control. From the great hall's edge, I could barely detect a low buzz of speech from the mechanism.
"I cannot hear clearly," Utgar complained. "What are they saying?"
"The king Odin is speaking," said Hel, with a contemptuous smile on her beautiful face. "He tells the Aesir nobles that he fears Loki is loosed, with Fenris and Iormungandr, and that Frey and Freya and the outland Jarl are captives in Jotunheim. The Aesir look wildly at one another, at that news. There is a shout from Thor."
"That stupid, brainless bear!" said Loki scornfully. "A lout who knows nothing but wrestling, eating and cracking skulls."
"What says the Hammerer?" Utgard asked.
Hel laughed. "The lord Thor is angry. His head is bound from a wound, as you can see. He roars that the Aesir vanquished Loki and the Jotuns once before, and that they will do so again. And this time, he says, they will slay Loki instead of prisoning him."
Loki leaped to his feet. A flash of rage as blinding and terrible as lightning twisted his face.
"Slay me?" he hissed. "Sons of the Aesir, my ancient people, you will rue that thought when Asgard goes down in flame and death."
"The king Odin is speaking again," Hel told Utgar. "He says they must prepare for the coming struggle. They must devise, if possible, some way to rescue Frey and Freya and the Jarl Keith from Jotunheim. And Odin says he fears Loki may be using his scientific powers to spy on them. He will make sure, he says—"
Hastily Loki reached out and touched a screw on that strange mechanism. The picture in its quartz screen and the buzz of voices ceased. I knew it must be some super-development of television, able to operate without a transmitter.
"We have seen and heard enough," Loki said moodily. "The Aesir know we will attack them, but they'll have small time to prepare. Two days hence, we march on Asgard to crush them."
"Aye, but be careful, lord," warned Utgar anxiously. "Odin, too, has great powers of ancient science. Once before, he snatched victory from us because of your too great confidence."
"Croak not your warnings to me!" Loki stormed. "I have had centuries in which to think. Nothing can save the Aesir this time. Get you both gone now, till I call you."
At the tone of his master's voice, Fenris raised his enormous head and snarled horribly. Utgar hastily retreated from Loki's blazing wrath, backing toward a door. Less urgently the princess Hel followed him. Without looking in the direction where I stood with my guards, watching this scene in fascinated horror, Loki spoke.
"Bring the outlander before me."
As the Jotuns marched me forward I saw that they were all trembling. They halted me in front of the black throne. I looked up defiantly into the brooding blue eyes of Loki. He spoke finally to the captain of the Jotun guards.
"Take your men and wait outside the hall."
"But, lord, we can't leave you here alone with this outland dog!" protested the captain.
Loki turned a withering glance on him.
"Think you I need such as you to protect me?" he asked bitingly. "Get you gone!"
The captain and his men almost tumbled over themselves in their haste to leave the hall. I stood there alone, facing Loki, the wolf, the snake that had slid to the throne, in that vast and gloomy hall of drifting fog and chill. Uncontrollably my heart pounded in sudden excitement and hope.
For my eyes had fastened on the sword that hung at Loki's side. If I could end the arch-traitor's life with that thirsty blade, I would die gladly, knowing that I had atoned for bringing the rune key into peaceful Asgard.
I sprang forward with wild determination. But instantly, like a thunderbolt of hurtling flesh, the huge wolf Fenris leaped upon me. The monster's weight knocked me to the floor. His huge, hairy body crushing me, his hot breath scorching me and terrible fangs gleaming, I saw Fenris' mighty jaws yawning above my face.
The glaring, feral green eyes of the gigantic wolf blazed down into mine with almost human hatred. Those jaws gaped to crush my skull like an eggshell.
"Fenris, loose him!" snapped Loki's voice, coming as though from a great distance.
Fenris turned his massive head a little, and a protesting, savage snarl rumbled from him. He was resisting his master's order. He wished to kill me.
"Do you grow disobedient?" flared Loki's voice.