A Yank at Valhalla

Chapter IV Odin Speaks

The bridge ended in a massive guard-house of gray stone, built sheer on the precipitous edge of Asgard. The only entrance to the city beyond was by an arched way through the fort, which was, barred by metal gates. But as our horses clattered over the stupendous bridge, a guard blew a long, throbbing call on a great horn that hung in a sling.

Our horses paused. Warily I glanced down into the abyss and looked at the island more closely. I noted that in the eastern cliffs was a deep fiord with a narrow entrance, in which floated several dozen ships. Dragon-ships like those of the old Vikings, they were forty to eighty feet long, with brazen beaks on their bows and sails furled and oars stacked. From the fiord, a steep path led upward to the plateau.

In answer to the blast on the horn, a tall, lordly man in gleaming mail and helmet came out on the tower above.

"Open wide your gates, Heimdall!" boomed Thor impatiently. "Are we to be kept waiting here till we rot?"

"Softly, Thor," Frey said to the Hammerer. "It was Heimdall, remember, whose keen eyes saw Freya and the Jotuns and warned us."

Heimdall, the warder of the guardhouse, waved his hand to us. Winches groaned, and the barred gates swung inward. We spurred forward. I was glad to leave that unrailed bridge over the abyss. We rode right through the arched tunnel that pierced the guardhouse, and clattered onto a stone-paved plaza.

Asgard lay before me.

Involuntarily I slacked my bridle and stared at the great gray castles that were built in a ring around the sheer edge of the lofty island. All twenty had been built of gray stone hewn from the rock of the island itself, and all were tiled with thin stone slates. Each consisted of a big, rectangular, two-storied hall, with two branching lower wings and two guardtowers. They faced toward a far huger pile that rose from the center of the island.

The largest castle had four guardtowers, and its vast, stone-tiled roof loomed over the rest of Asgard like a man-made mountain. Between this great hall and the ring of smaller castles lay small fields and cobbled streets of stone houses and workshops.

Hundreds of the people of Asgard were in the streets and fields. All were fair-haired, blue-eyed and large-statured. Many of the men wore helmets and mailed brynjas, and were armed with sword, ax or bow. Other men wore metal rings around their necks, but they went about their tasks cheerfully enough. The women wore long blue or white gowis, with wimpled hoods. There were scarcely any children.

"Must be an unbelievably low birthrate here," I muttered. "That could be due to the hard radiation effect."

The faint, eldritch green glow pervaded this island, like the mainland. It was certainly exhilarating. It was restoring my vigor with amazing speed. But if it was actually gamma or a similar hard radiation, as I suspected, it would be bound to cause a partial sterility among people who were continually exposed to it.

We spurred toward the central castle, halted our horses on a stone plaza guarded by a file of soldiery.

"This is Valhalla, the castle of our king," Freya told me as we dismounted. "Courage, Jarl Keith. Odin will explain all to you."

The touch of her slim white fingers seemed to steady me. Valhalla, the legendary gathering hall of the gods, had stunned me. I grinned weakly and followed Thor as he clanked through the arched entrance and strode down a stone corridor into a vast hall.

The place was two hundred feet wide and six hundred feet long! Ninety feet above us were the great beams that supported the enormous gabled roof. Narrow, slit-like windows admitted too little light to dispel the shadows, but I could see that the walls were hung with brilliant tapestries. The stone floor held massive tables and benches.

In the center was a great sunken hearth, where a few dying brands still smoldered. Facing this, on a raised stone dais against the south wall, sat Odin, king of the Aesir. He was wrapped in a blue-gray mantle, and wore a gleaming eagle-helmet. Thor led our little group across the shadowy hall and raised his hammer in salute.

"Hail, king and father! The Jotuns dared to attack the lady Freya. Frey and I killed the skrellings, and have brought this man. He looks like a Jotun to me, but he claims he is an outlander."

Freya stepped forward, her slim figure martial in her gleaming white mail, her beautiful white face wrathful.

"Thor is stupid as ever, lord Odin! Anyone can see this man is an outlander from beyond Niffleheim."

"Let the man speak for himself," Odin said in a heavy, rolling voice.

The king of the Aesir seemed to be a powerful, vigorous man of about fifty years of age. His short beard was gray. His left eye was missing, destroyed by the accident or battle that had also left a white scar on his face. But he radiated such deep, stern power and wisdom that I felt like a child before him.

"You say you came from beyond Niffleheim?" he asked.

"Yes, lord Odin," I answered unsteadily. "I was traveling over that icy waste in my flying ship. A storm caught me and flung me far north, toward this strange land which I could not even see until I was hurled into it."

"So the outland peoples have been learning science?" Odin asked thoughtfully. "It must be so, if they can build flying craft."

"Yes, and I am one of the scientists of my people," I said. "Yet I cannot understand this strange land. It cannot be seen from outside. It is warm compared with the polar cold outside, and it seems flooded with some mysterious force."

"If you cannot understand these things," Odin rumbled, "then the science of your outland peoples cannot be deep as our ancient one."

I was more stunned than ever. The Aesir seemed utterly without modern scientific tools, weapons and instruments, yet their ruler was calmly deprecating the science of the modern world.

"I cannot understand you, lord Odin!" I burst out. "Asgard, all the Aesir, and the Jotuns have been deemed but legend for many centuries. Yet in this hidden land I find you have the names of the old gods, and have called your city Asgard. Most of all, I do not understand why you speak of the science of my race as though you knew a much deeper science. I have seen no evidences of scientific knowledge in this land at all!"

"Outlander, who call yourself Jarl Keith," Odin replied, "we Aesir are men, not gods. But we have lived for many centuries in Asgard, and many legends may have risen about us in the outer world."

"You've lived here for centuries?" I gasped incredulously. "Do you mean that you are immortal?"

"Not immortal. We can be killed by war, accident or starvation. But we do not grow old, and neither do we sicken or die of disease. We do possess an ancient science, deeper and different than your outland science.

"But because it once brought us disaster, we prefer not to encourage research in it, nor use it in our everyday lives. We Aesir were the first civilized race of Earth. For we grew to civilization in the place where life itself first evolved — beneath the crust of Earth."

"Inside Earth?" I exclaimed unbelievingly. "Why, not one of our biologists would agree!"

"Yet it is so," said Odin broodingly. "There are great spaces beneath the crust of the planet, mighty hollows formed by its unequal cooling. It was in one of those spaces beneath this northern part of the globe that life first began. For in those hollows are great masses of imbedded radioactive elements.

"Their radiation, powerfully drenching certain compounds of carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and other elements, which erosion carried down into the subterranean spaces, transformed those unstable compounds into new, complex chemical compounds. They never could have formed on the surface. Those organic compounds finally formed into cells capable of assimilation and reproduction.

"A rapid evolution of those first subterranean living cells into more complex creatures took place. It was rapid because the penetrating radiation in that subterranean space affected the genes of all living things and caused a proliferation of mutants, a constant flood of new forms. Thus, the first living things, the first plants and insects and animals, were born beneath Earth's crust.

"From there, they spread out onto Earth's surface, and soon multiplied vastly. But evolution was more rapid in the subterranean spaces. For the gene-affecting radiation was more powerful there than on the surface. Thus more mutants evolved there. So it was in the subterranean spaces that the first mammals and the first men evolved. Many of those men found their way out to the surface.

"They spread over Earth as wandering, half-animal savages who slowly developed through the ages. But the human beings who remained in the sheltered subterranean world developed far more swiftly. Those people had become intelligent when the men of the surface were still brutes. Those people in the underworld developed a great civilization and deep knowledge of science. They were my people, the Aesir.

"Generations of us lived and died in the great, hollow underground world we called Muspelheim. But then our scientific progress brought catastrophe. One of our scientists, ignoring my warnings, believed that he could enable us to live indefinitely without aging or sickening.

"His theory was that by accelerating the natural disintegration of the radioactive substances in our subterranean world, they would emit a terrific flood of radiation. It would destroy all disease bacteria and deliver us from sickness. It also would constantly renew the cells in our bodies by stimulating their unceasing regeneration."

Odin paused, and a shudder seemed to run through all the Aesir in that great hall, Valhalla.

"Against my orders, he carried out the experiment that brought catastrophe to Muspelheim. The process got beyond his control. All the radioactive matter in our subterranean world blazed up. We Aesir fled up from our underworld to the surface. We found that the mainland yonder, which we called Midgard, was populated by two of the barbarous races of the upper Earth.

"One of those races, whom we called the Jotuns because of their great stature, were quite numerous. A people of savage, brutal warriors, lacking all learning, they dwelt in the dark city Jotunheim, which lies on the southern shore of the mainland Midgard. The other race we called the Alfings, for they were stunted men who dwelt mostly in the small caves under Midgard, through fear of the Jotuns.

"The Jotuns at first pretended friendliness toward us, and learned our language. We had taken this island of Asgard for our home, and had built our castles here, and connected it to the mainland by the bridge Bifrost, whose beams the Alfings forged for us. Then the Jotuns suddenly unmasked their hatred and attacked us here in Asgard.

"Almost they overcame us, for to surprise was added treachery. But by calling upon our scientific powers, we repelled the Jotuns. Aghast at the dreadful forces our science loosed upon them, they gladly ceased attacking us. Yet they have always hated us, and we have lived in a hostile armed truce with them for twenty centuries.

"Yes, for two thousand years have I and most of my people lived here in Asgard. The terrific blaze of radioactive fire which our rash scientist kindled in Muspelheim far below drenches all this land with penetrating radiation. Even as he had hoped, it kills all disease bacteria and rejuvenates our tissues. We do not sicken or age, and can live indefinitely, unless killed in war or accident. But because the radiation has a strong sterilizing effect, our number has never increased.

"The Jotuns and Alfings, who dwell in the mainland Midgard, are also kept unaging by the radiation. And it refracts all light around this land. It also causes the northern lights that stream from this place into the skies. Here in Asgard we have lived thus for all these centuries. Though we chiefs of the Aesir retain the deep scientific knowledge we developed long ago in Muspelheim, we have chosen not to delve deeper.

"It was such delving that brought disaster to our subterranean home. We want no more such disasters! We are content to live here in simple fashion, without depending too utterly on science. We know from bitter experience that science can be perverted to catastrophic results by reckless and unscrupulous men."

His heavy voice ceased. I stood staring at him, my mind dizzy. Incredible as it seemed, his story was scientifically sound. It explained nearly all the enigmas I had met in this mystery land.

"You have lived here for centuries," I mused. "Dim rumors of your powers, your city Asgard, and your war with the Jotuns, must have reached the outer world. These rumors became myths that made you gods."

"It must be so," Odin agreed. "Long ago, a party of the Aesir went beyond the ice on an important mission. Some of them did not return. Now I believe those lost ones reached the outer world. They probably died soon, from lack of the rejuvenating radiation. But their stories of us may have begun those myths."

"So I am thought a mythical god in the outer world, eh?" Thor guffawed.

"It is true," I said earnestly. "And also lord Odin, and Frey and Freya. But there's one thing I can't understand. Those Jotuns who attacked me and Freya seemed intent on killing or capturing me. It was as though they expected me, and were waiting to seize me. Yet how could they possibly know I was coming?"

Odin frowned. "I do not know, but I do not like it. It may be that the Jotuns—"

His voice trailed off, and he stared abstractedly beyond me. Somehow the tone of his voice had chilled me.

"But enough of that now," he said abruptly. "We shall talk later of these things and of the outer world from whence you come. Now Jarl Keith is to be an honored guest of the Aesir."

"I can't claim that title," I replied. "I am no chieftain in my own land. I'm only a scientist."

"Any man who dared Niffleheim's ice has won the title of jarl," he declared. "You shall rest in this castle. And tonight, Jarl Keith, you sit with the Aesir at our nightly feast, here in Valhalla."