A Yank at Valhalla

Chapter IX Loki's Prison

The drums ahead stopped throbbing. Frey and I were escorted into the greatest cavern, which was bright with the flickering light of many torches. Hundreds of Alfings had hastily gathered here. There were a few of their women, short-statured and hunched as the men, and not many children. Men, women and children all stared at us in heavy silence.

Upon a stone terrace at the end of the cavern stood a massive Alfing who wore a heavy gold collar studded with wonderful jewels. Bright, suspicious and fearful eyes looked at us out of his dark, heavy face. It was Andvar, the Alfing king. He listened to our guards' explanation, then spoke to me in a rumbling bass voice.

"Who are you, stranger? You do not look like any Aesir, yet you claim to be a friend of the lady Freya."

"I'm her betrothed," I declared, "and this is her kinsman Frey."

"The lady Freya alone among Aesir or Jotun is welcome here," Andvar said sullenly. "She alone has always been friendly to us. But you are not welcome. You have trespassed in entering Alfheim."

"Dire necessity forced us to trespass," I said earnestly. "We hurry to reach the deep cavern where Loki lies imprisoned."

My words created a stir of horror among the Alfings.

"Why should you wish to go there?" Andvar demanded. "None of the Aesir has gone to Loki's prison since he was confined there, long centuries ago."

"We must go there," I replied, "because even now the Jotuns will be hurrying by other ways to release Loki. They have abducted the lady Freya, and with her they took the rune key that will unlock the door of Loki's prison."

Cries of fear broke from the throng of Alfings in the torchlit cavern. I saw Andvar's massive face grow pale beneath its swarthy skin.

"They hold the lady Freya and the rune key?" he boomed. "But if they release Loki with the key, it means war again between Jotun and Aesir. This time, Loki might well win the final victory!"

"He might," I agreed quickly. "And if Loki succeeded in conquering the Aesir, he will lead the Jotuns to subdue Alfheim."

The terror upon the faces of the Alfings showed clearly that they had already thought of the possibility.

"There is still time to prevent the freeing of the arch-fiend," I continued. "If we can get to his prison before the Jotuns come there with the key, we can prevent them from setting Loki free. Will you help us?"

Andvar shook his great head troubledly.

"We cannot help you attack the Jotuns. Long ago, we told both Aesir and Jotun that we would have no part in their war, but would live at peace and trade with both of them. We cannot break our promise by raising our weapons against the Jotuns."

"But unless the Jotuns are prevented from freeing Loki, it means war, in which you Alfings may be crushed as between mill-stones! If you strike now to help us, you may save your race. And you will be helping to save Freya, your friend."

Doubt and fear were written on the faces of all the swarthy, stunted Alfings in the torchlight. But as Frey and I waited tensely, Andvar shook his head again.

"We dare not help you. If the Jotuns ever learned that we had raised our weapons against them, then would they seek to destroy us all. They would ruin our gardens and slay our hunters on the surface, and we would not dare emerge any more. Thus would we perish, since we could not live always in darkness."

"It's no use, Jarl Keith," Frey muttered defeatedly. "They're too afraid of the Jotuns to help us in an ambush."

"But they could give us back our swords and lead us by the swiftest way to the door of Loki's prison," I said quickly. "We alone might be able to prevent Loki's release."

Frey nodded eagerly, his eyes burning with sudden impatience to match wits and strength with the enemy.

"Andvar, you can help us without raising your weapons against the Jotuns," I said. "Give us back our swords, and lead us by the shortest route to the door of Loki's prison. We ourselves will undertake to prevent the release of the evil one."

"If the Jotuns learned that we did even that, they would be enraged against us," Andvar mused. "But they cannot learn of it, unless you tell them. Swear that no matter what befalls you, you will not tell of our part in this. Then we will guide you to Loki's cave."

Frey raised his hand. "I swear it by the Norns, the fates who rule all, and by Wyrd, their mother."

Though I repeated the oath, Andvar seemed only partly satisfied.

"It is a great risk we run. But Loki must not again go free to ravage Midgard with war, death and destruction. We will give you back your swords and guide you, Aesir. It rests upon you two alone to prevent the loosing of Loki."

The red torches bobbed as the Alfings turned fearfully to us.

"We are almost to the cavern-prison of Loki," said Andvar. "I fear to go farther."

The Alfing king's massive face was pale, the dread plain in his green eyes. Our three other dwarfed guides were equally terrified.

"You promised to lead us to the door of the prison," I said. "Take us to where we can see it. Then you can return."

Andvar shuddered and hesitantly advanced with his three subjects, though now their steps were slow and reluctant. We were passing through a high, vaulted cavity deep in the rock beneath Midgard. Andvar and the other Alfings had been leading Frey and myself into the maze of natural cavities. Traveling always westward and southward, I judged we were beneath the center of the rocky mainland.

Hours before, we had left the tunnels and work-caverns of Alfheim. These gloomy spaces we now traversed showed no sign of their presence. The stunted men so feared the very name of Loki that they never went near this labyrinth of caves. It was too close to where Loki's body lay in suspended animation.

My brain was feverish with excitement, hope and despair, as Frey and I followed our Alfing guides. I realized miserably that even if we were able to prevent the Jotuns from setting their dread lord free, that would still leave Freya a prisoner in dark and distant Jotunheim. A prisoner — or perhaps a tortured corpse by now…

At that thought, I clutched the hilt of my sword with wild passion. The Alfings had given us back our weapons. Upon these two blades we must depend to vanquish the Jotuns who would come with the rune key to release and awaken Loki. It was a desperate course we had charted. But if Frey was right, upon our swords rested the only hope of thwarting the release of the prisoned arch-devil.

Andvar led us into a narrow split in the rock. We squeezed through it in single file, bruising our limbs. From this crevice, we emerged into a silent, tomb-like gallery, piled with rocks in fantastic shapes.

"We go no farther!" quavered Andvar. Tremblingly he pointed toward the far end of the great gallery. "There lies the door of Loki's prison!"

I peered between the masses of fallen rock that filled the gallery. Far away, something like a web of shimmering radiance closed a gap in the rock wall.

"Aye, it is the door of the arch-traitor's prison," Frey whispered. "Well do I remember when Odin placed it there, long centuries ago."

"The Jotuns haven't come yet with the key!" I breathed eagerly. "We're in time!"

"Now we leave you, for we will not go nearer Loki," Andvar muttered fearfully. He handed us one of the torches. "If you succeed in preventing Loki's release, you will rescue our friend, the lady Freya?"

The dwarf king's anxiety softened me.

"Be sure we will, Andvar," I promised. "Somehow we'll get her out of Jotunheim."

"She has always been kind to us, as her mother and mother's mother were before her," Andvar declared. "You are lucky to have won her love, stranger."

"I know," I said humbly.

"Hasten, Andvar!" called the other Alfings softly. "The Jotuns may come at any moment."

Andvar heeded their anxious warning, and hurried through the crevice by which we had just come. The thump of their heavy tread died away.

"Can the Jotuns get to Loki's prison without going through Alfheim as we did?" I asked Frey.

"Yes. There are many ways from the surface into these caves, Jarl Keith. The Jotuns will come by one of them."

Holding the torch high, I advanced with Frey through the lofty cavern. A profound silence made the guttering of the torch, even my own breathing, seem loud to my ears.

My heart was pounding as we approached the shimmering door at the end of the cavern. Now I saw that the door was not of matter at all, but of force, that apparently their web of light was probably less vulnerable than any material door could be. It was projected from apertures on either side of the opening. I guessed that hidden inside the rock must be the mechanisms that projected the force. Frey confirmed my guess.

"Odin himself devised the projectors and sunk them in the rock. They are operated by inexhaustible atomic power, and generate an absolute barrier to all three-dimensional matter. They are controlled by the tiny projector in the rune key. That is why, if the key were destroyed, the door would vanish in one terrific flash of force."

With a queer, shrinking dread, I approached the transparent web. I was about to touch it when Frey hastily drew me back.

"Keep a safe distance," he warned. "The extra-dimensional force web would blast your hand."

Shaken, I stood a few feet from the shimmering curtain, peering into the small cave beyond.

"Loki!" I whispered hoarsely.

He lay upon a skin rug, dimly visible in the light of the radiant door. His arms were outspread, his face upturned. Bright gold was Loki's hair and mustache. slender and gracefully formed was his unmoving body. He wore helmet, brynja and sword like those of the Aesir.

Loki's face was — beautiful! Mere handsomeness could never have struck such awe into me. His eyes were closed, the long, golden lashes slumbering on his white cheeks.

"Most beautiful of all the Aesir was Loki outwardly — a fair shell that hid his black, evilly ambitious soul," Frey said fiercely. "See, Jarl Keith. Beside him lie his monstrous pets, prisoned like himself in suspended animation."

I tore my eyes from the angelic face of Loki. When I looked beyond him, I felt the hair of my neck bristle. Upon the rough rock floor of that little cavern crouched a huge gray wolf. Large as a bear, it held its mighty head between its paws, its lips baring the awful fangs in an eternal snarl. In a complete circle around both Loki and the frightful wolf lay the black, motionless coils of an enormous serpent.

"The wolf Fenris and Iormungandr, the Midgard snake!" hissed Frey, his eyes glittering hate. "The pets that Loki cherished, and that were prisoned here with him by Odin's science."

"Whoever heard of a wolf and serpent as big as that?" I gasped.

"Loki made them grow that large, by some scientific means," Frey muttered. "Another of his evil experiments."

"He must have used some form of glandular control," I said thoughtfully. "Loki certainly must have had plenty of scientific knowledge."

For a few moments, we stared at the three fiends in silence.

"Frey, are they really only in suspended animation?" I whispered. "They seem to be dead."

"They are alive," Frey assured me. "Only the functions of Loki's physical body are suspended. His mind is conscious, even at this moment. Just as a man can be paralyzed and still be fully conscious, so it is with Loki."

"But even if he's conscious, how could he have influenced me from afar to keep the rune key? How could he have raised the storm that blew me here, and given orders to the Jotuns to be waiting for me?"

"In his researches, Loki had developed the power to send telepathic messages," Frey explained tautly. "Do your scientists have that power?"

"They're just beginning to find out about it. They call it extra-sensory perception."

"Loki had developed that power to great lengths," Frey said. "Though his body is prisoned here, his conscious mind can send forth powerful thought messages. Such commands he sent into your mind, Jarl Keith, from here. And such messages he must have sent to the Jotuns, ordering them to operate his strange mechanisms. They can raise tempests such as blew you here."

"And he's been held here for centuries, with his mind awake and conscious!" I muttered in horror, shuddering. "What is that vapor drifting about the chamber?"

"That contains the secret of suspended animation," Frey told me. "Odin devised the vapor, which freezes and halts the chemical activity of the body's cells, at the same time preserving each cell unharmed. The vapor alone holds Loki and his pets frozen. If the radiant door were opened and the vapor escaped, the arch-traitor and his pets would awake—"

"Listen!" I hissed suddenly, clutching Frey's arm.

I had heard a dim murmur of voices, footsteps approaching from the farther end of the gallery.

"The Jotuns come!" breathed Frey.

"Coming to free Loki!" I said. "We've got to hide, and take them by surprise!"