A Yank at Valhalla

Chapter XII The Laboratory

He led the way across the vast, many-pillared hall. The giant wolf, Fenris, rose and followed us on padding feet, its feral green eyes never leaving me. Loki brought me into a smaller stone chamber. It was indeed a laboratory — the strangest I had ever seen.

Two small, blazing suns of radioactive matter, suspended in lead bowls, illuminated the dusky room. The intense white radiance glittered off an array of unfamiliar mechanisms and instruments.

I saw another of the complex instruments of remote vision, with a square quartz view-screen, such as Loki, Utgar and Hel had been using in the great hall. And I noticed devices which appeared to be similar to the transmutation apparatus used by the Alfings. But these were greatly refined in design. Using concentrated beams of radioactive energy shot from leaden funnels, they could effect even more rapid transmutation of small metal objects.

Loki led the way to the most striking feature of this array of alien scientific instruments. Proudly he gestured at a row of big objects which looked like heavy nozzles of fused quartz mounted on swivels above square, copper-shielded mechanisms. The interior complexities I could not see. Loki laid his hand on one of the nozzles of quartz.

"These are the storm-cones I long ago devised, Jarl Keith. They can cause the most terrific tempest at a distance of hundreds of miles."

"How can they do that?" I asked incredulously.

"It is quite simple." He smiled. "A lightning storm is caused by a sudden sharp difference in electric potential between cloud and Earth, or cloud and cloud. These storm-cones spray a carefully aimed and canalized electric field that causes such an abnormal difference of potential in any desired location. When I lead the Jotun horde to attack Asgard, I'll first bring destructive lightning down upon the Aesir forces. Then they'll fall easy prey to my savage warriors."

I was too appalled by that threat to comment. Loki led me toward a door on the opposite side of the laboratory.

"Now perhaps you can instruct me a little, Jarl Keith," he said. "Come with me."

The door opened into a big, stone-paved court outside the ancient citadel. It was walled, but a great gate in one wall was open, leading out onto the slope that ran steeply toward the river. Dusk had fallen, and the white mists that shrouded Jotunheim were thicker.

My eyes flew to a familiar object in this court. It was my rocket ship. It had not been destroyed, after all.

"Yes, it is your flying ship," Loki said. "After you landed in Midgard, I knew it was only a matter of days until I was released. I sent a thought order to the princess Hel to have Jotun ships brings the craft here, for I wish much to examine this product of the outland world's science. But don't cherish any hopes of making a sudden escape in it, Jarl Keith. I've only to say a word to send Fenris ravening at your throat."

The monster wolf behind us snarled again, as he heard his name. I shrugged.

"I wouldn't leave without Freya and Frey, anyway."

Loki inspected the whole interior of the plane, asking me quick, intelligent questions about every feature of it. He seemed to grasp the design of the ship and its highly improved rocket motor almost instantly.

"You are clever, you outlanders, to devise such things," he said with sincere respect.

"Don't you want to look at the controls?" I asked.

My heart was thudding, for I had seen a wild, insane opportunity. Loki entered the cabin, and I explained the controls. Then I opened the sack of white chemicals which we always carried on these Arctic flights. I took out a handful and showed them to him.

"These are chemicals that generate heat. We use them to free the plane's wheels if they become frozen into the ice."

"That, too, is clever," he mused as he emerged from the plane. "You outlanders are indeed mechanically ingenious, though you have not probed the ancient science of the deepest forces of nature as we Aesir did."

He said nothing more as he brought me back through the laboratory to the dusky great hall. Fenris stalked at our heels. Then Loki turned.

"I could teach you our ancient science, Jarl Keith," he said, to my surprise. "You could learn much that your science puzzles over. And you would be second only to me, once the Aesir are conquered."

I began to understand what he was suggesting.

"You want me to turn against the Aesir — against my friends?"

"That woman Freya — and even Frey, if you wish — can be spared."

"Why do you wish me to become your follower?" I asked suspiciously.

Loki's beautiful face was undeniably sincere as he answered me.

"Because it is as I said. We two are more akin than any others in this land. We seek scientific truth and love the new and strange. Besides, I have no human friend, for Utgar is but a brute-brained tool, and Hel is but a wicked wildcat who never can learn my science. It is true that I have Fenris and Iormungandr. My wolf and serpent have wisdom and cunning which are almost human, but they are not human friends. Speak, Jarl Keith. Will you join me as friend and follower?"

Stunned by the offer, I tried desperately to think. If I could make Loki believe I was willing to join him, and then work against him–

"Your words are convincing," I answered as though deeply thoughtful. "We are alike. I think that I shall join you, Loki. Loki smiled at me; a weary, half-scornful, half-amused smile.

"Jarl Keith, I thought better of you than to expect you to try such transparent stratagems as this upon me," he said. "Can you not understand that in experience you are to me but as a small child? Can you hope to dupe me when I can read your mind?"

I looked up at him defiantly.

"I would fight the devil with fire. You know the truth now, Loki. I have only hate for you, as for all traitors. You prepare to lead these savage Jotuns against your own people, because your own kind has cast you out."

I know that got under his skin, for his eyes narrowed. His mouth tightened, and for a split-second I glimpsed that angelically beautiful face warp into a hell mask of white fury. It was as though the raging evil inside him looked forth naked and unhidden. The wolf Fenris, as though understanding his master's mood, sprang to his feet and snarled viciously at me. Then Loki's face cleared, and he laughed at me without a trace of ill-feeling.

"You have courage, Jarl Keith, proving even more that you are like myself. Yes, you are afraid to admit to yourself how much we two are alike, and how much you like me."

That shot got home to me, for I sensed that it was the truth. I did feel a sympathy for this fallen Lucifer that was hard for me to thrust down.

"You shall stay prisoned here in Jotunheim until after our forces have conquered Asgard," Loki decided. "Once the Aesir are destroyed and the past cannot be recalled, I think you will be wise enough to join me as friend and follower." He raised his voice in a peremptory order. "Guards, return this prisoner to his cell!"

The Jotun captain and his men came running from outside. Not daring even to look up at their overlord, they hustled me out of the hall.

As I went with them, I looked back. Loki seemed already to have forgotten me. He sat in that dismal, mist-filled hall, brooding with chin in hand, his bright-gold head bent. The wolf Fenris looked up at him with faithful, brilliant green eyes.

I was conducted back through the same dank corridors and passages to the subterranean level of the palace. The tall guards clanked toward the door of our cell and opened it. Without ceremony, I was thrust in. When the door was locked after me, the guards marched away.

Freya came anxiously across the dark little cell and found her way into my arms.

"I feared that you would not return, Jarl Keith," she moaned softly.

"What did Loki want with you?" Frey asked, his pale face intent.

I told them most of what had taken place. Freya listened with horror-widened eyes, her kinsman in thoughtful silence.

"So Loki wishes you to join him," he muttered, when I had finished. "That is strange."

"I think it's only because he's lonely," I said. "He has nothing but contempt for these Jotuns, whom he means to use merely to crush the Aesir. I felt a little sorry for him."

Freya stared at me surprisedly. Frey's pale, handsome face tightened as he warned me.

"Heed not the arch-traitor's subtle persuasions, Jarl Keith! Never lived anyone who could harm man or beast by his silver tongue and handsome face as can Loki."

"Never fear," I reassured him. "My loyalty is with the Aesir. No tempting could ever change that."

I went on to tell them of what Loki had told me in his laboratory, explaining his intention to use his storm-cones against the Aesir.

"We must get back to Asgard and warn Odin, so he can prepare a defense," I concluded. "My flying ship is in the court on the citadel's riverside—"

"How can we reach your craft when we can't even get out of this locked cell?" Frey replied hopelessly.

"I think we can escape this cell, at least," I said. I drew from my pocket a handful of white chemical powder and showed it to them. "It's the chemical I always carried in my plane to melt ice from the wheels when necessary. I showed Loki this handful and then put it in my pocket."

"What good will that do, Jarl Keith?" Freya asked puzzledly.

"The lock on the door of this cell is a crude one, made of soft copper," I answered. "I believe this substance can burn away enough of the lock to free us. I'm going to try it anyhow."

I stuffed the chemical powder into the large crevices of the clumsy lock. Then I took our jar of water and poured a little over the powder. The hissing and sizzling of the chemical reaction continued for several minutes. When it ceased, I gently tugged at the lock. It still held. I pulled harder, and with a rasp, it gave way.

"Follow me," I whispered tensely. "I think I know the direction to the court where the plane is. If we only can get through the corridors without meeting anyone!"

We emerged into the dusty stone passage. I led the way toward the right, taking the first cross-corridor that led northward. The cold chill of the night fog penetrated the marrow of our bones, and our nerves were harp-string taut as we pressed on through the dark corridors.

Suddenly I shrank back into the shadows. I had seen two Jotun warriors approaching from a cross-corridor ahead.

"Hurry!" one was urging the other fearfully. "Do you wish to meet the hideous one that now lurks in these passages?"

"Frey, we'll have to jump them," I whispered. "Be ready."

The two Jotuns came around the corner into our dusky corridor. Frey and I leaped on them, taking them utterly by surprise. What followed was not pretty. We had grabbed their throats, for it was essential that they should not give an alarm. There was a fierce, deadly scuffle in the misty, dark tunnel, until we throttled them.

The Jotuns lay limp when Frey and I straightened, panting. We took the swords the two warriors had not had a chance to draw.

"Come on," I panted. "This way. Those warriors must have entered from one of the outside courts."

We hurried down the shadowy passage from which the Jotuns had come. Then Freya suddenly stopped, pulling me to a halt.

"Listen, Jarl Keith," she urged in a hushed voice. "Something sinister is coming."

In the silence, I heard a strange, silky, rustling sound in the dark and misty passage ahead. It was growing nearer, louder–

A giant, spade-shaped head reared out of the curling mists ahead of us! Two opaline, unwinking eyes that held the dull glitter of an alien intelligence contemplated us from above a gaping mouth in which a forked red tongue flickered.

"This is what the Jotuns feared!" Frey cried wildly.

"The fates save us!" Freya prayed. "It is Iormungandr."

I also recognized that giant, scaly body of long, rippling blackness, that huge head and those alien, glittering eyes. It was Iormungandr who towered before us in the misty dusk of the chill tunnel. The ageless and undying, the great Midgard serpent itself, was glaring down with blood-lusting eyes!