A Yank at Valhalla Page 6

  I staggered to my feet.

  "It's more important that we go after those Jotuns, and rescue Freya and the key."

  "By now," muttered the Aesir noble hopelessly, "they must be near Jotunheim. We couldn't overtake them even if we had a ship."

  "I can overtake them in a few minutes," I said grimly. "You Aesir may know a lot about atomic fires and subtle forces, but you don't know airplanes. Mine is moored right on this beach."

  "Your flying ship?" he gasped. "I had forgotten about it. Is it swift enough to overtake the Jotun ships?"

  "Swift enough?" I repeated. "Wait till you get in it. Maybe it'll make you think a little more highly of my science!"

  I hastened toward the two great boulders between which I had moored my plane. It was gone! The tracks in the sand showed that it had been dragged down to the water.

  "Someone's stolen my ship!" I groaned.

  "The Jotuns must have done it. Whoever sent them to kill or capture you, Jarl Keith, sent other warriors later to seize your flying ship."

  "They must have dragged it down and pulled it aboard one of their biggest ships," I muttered. "Now we don't have a chance of overtaking Freya's captors before they reach Jotunheim."

  "Aye, I fear that all is lost," Frey sighed, "Now that the Jotuns have Freya and the rune key, the Jotun king Utgar will hasten to release Loki from his prison-cave. And once Loki is free and conspiring again with the Jotuns, it will be doom for all Asgard and the Aesir."

  My natural inclination was to hasten by the fastest method to Jotunheim, in an attempt to rescue Freya. But I realized that I owed my first duty to the cause of all the Aesir. It was I who had unwittingly brought the rune key that might loose Loki on them.

  "Frey, tell me. Where and how far from here is the cave in which Loki is held prisoner?"

  "It is miles to the south, deep in the labyrinth of caves that lie under Midgard," he said bewilderedly. "Why do you ask?"

  "If you and I hurried to the door of Loki's prison and waited there," I explained eagerly, "we could be there when the Jotun king came to release Loki. We could strike Utgar down and take back the key before he could release that devil. And then, with the key safe, we could find a way to get Freya out of Jotunheim."

  Frey was startled by the boldness of my plan.

  "It is a daring scheme," he breathed, "and I do not crave to go near Loki. Yet it might succeed. It might prevent his escape."

  "How can we get to that prison-cave before the Jotuns get there with the rune key?"

  "There's but one quick way — through the tunnels of the Alfings," Frey declared.

  "The Alfings? The dwarfs who live in the caves under the mainland?"

  "Yes, Jarl Keith, and they like no strangers to come unasked into Alfheim. Yet they are friends of Freya and might let us pass through for her sake. It's dangerous to try, but I am willing."

  "Lead on, then," I said. "Find the nearest way into the Alfings' caverns!"

  Frey led me to a black opening in the rock wall, the mouth of a pitch-dark passage that ran straight back into the cliff. Its sides showed that it had been excavated by human ingenuity. We entered it.

  The tunnel was only five feet high, forcing us to stoop as we proceeded. In a few moments, we were blinded by complete darkness, but we groped on. Then Frey stopped suddenly in the cramped passage. I glimpsed the glimmer of green eyes shining at us from ahead.

  "Wild beasts?" I asked, my hand going to the hilt of my sword.

  "Alfings," Frey answered tautly. "They can see us even in this darkness. Take your hand from your sword and do not move, lest you die quickly."

  I stood unmoving as a statue beside Frey, peering tensely into the darkness ahead, listening to the muffled sound of rapid shuffling. The green eyes shining eerily through the blackness were increased in number. The extreme tension in Frey's figure beside me told me that we were in peril. I remembered what Odin had said of the Alfings. They were an older race than either Jotun or Aesir, and had taken no part in the wars between the two great enemy peoples. "We are friends, Alfings!" Frey called clearly.

  From the dark answered a heavy, hoarse, growling voice.

  "You come uninvited into Alfheim. The penalty is death, whether you be Jotuns or Aesir."

  "We are Aesir," Frey answered quickly, "and we entered your passages only because of dire necessity. I am Frey, kinsman of the lady Freya, whom you know well."

  There was a low murmur of deep voices from ahead, as though his statement had caused excitement.

  "Freya's name may save us here," he muttered to me. "She has always been a friend of the Alfings, as her mother and mother's mother were before her."

  The bass voice answered from the dark.

  "The lady Freya is welcome always in Alfheim. But that welcome has not been extended to the other Aesir, as you well know. However, we shall take you to our king Andvar for judgment. Lay down your weapons."

  "Drop your sword, Jarl Keith," said Frey.

  Our swords fell to the rock floor together. We saw the shining green eyes approach, heard heavy feet thumping all around us and the sudden scratch of flint on steel. A spark leaped. Big resinous torches flamed with ruddy light, illuminating the whole cramped tunnel.

  Surrounding us were a dozen Alfings, all armed with short, heavy spears and huge maces of metal. They kept their weapons raised alertly toward us, except the two who held the torches. The tallest was only four-and-a-half feet high. But their bodies were squat and massive beyond belief, with enormously broad, hunched shoulders, arms and legs of tremendous thickness, and big heads with shaggy, dark hair. Their faces were massive and swarthy, their green eyes shining like those of animals. They wore leather tunics and leather sandals soled with iron.

  "Andvar will judge you, Aesir," their leader rumbled to us, his green eyes watching us suspiciously. "If you try to escape, you die."

  "We have no thought of escape," I assured him. "Lead us to Andvar."

  The Alfings shuffled forward with us along the cramped tunnel, one of the torch-bearers keeping ahead and one behind. The others watched us closely, keeping their weapons alertly raised. Presently the tunnel ran into another low passage chiseled from the rock, and then into another.

  "Do these people always live underground?" I asked Frey.

  "Not all the time, Jarl Keith. They emerge cautiously by day, sometimes. But their dwellings and workshops are in these caves."

  "Workshops?" I repeated.

  "The Alfings are cunning workers with strange skills," Frey explained. "Not alone are they wonderful forgers of metal. They know how to transmute metals at will, by an alchemy that makes use of radioactive force. Freya has often told me of their weird achievements."

  After an Alfing had run ahead to bear tidings of our approach, I heard drums throbbing hollowly through the maze of passages. Ever louder they boomed, like the amplified beating of many hearts. We emerged from the tunnel into a great cavern, one of their smithies. Great forges blazed in it, and clever trip-hammers were beating out white-hot metal.

  The quivering glow of the forges paled the torchlight of our guards, and the banging clangor of the brazen hammers was deafening in the echoing cavern. The Alfing smiths looked up from their work to watch with wide, suspicious green eyes. We passed through another resounding cavern of smiths, and entered a chamber that was filled with a glaring white radiance.

  "What is that?" I exclaimed, blinking.

  "One of the caverns of the alchemists," Frey said. "See, Jarl Keith, how they use strange science to change metals."

  A strange science it was, indeed. The primitive science of the dwarfs was accomplishing things beyond the highly advanced science of my modern world. From leaden brackets projecting from the cavern wall were suspended a dozen globes like brilliant, tiny suns, blazing with white radiance. These were bits of extremely active matter procured from far within the Earth by the fearless dwarfs.

  Round shields of heavy lead confined the fierce radiation and firmly directed it do
wnward. That intense torrent of force was filtered through varying plates of translucent, quartzlike stone. Thus tempered, the streaming force played upon leaden trays set underneath. On these trays lay iron or copper objects — ornaments, buckles, dagger-sheaths, and the radiation was transforming them into gold!

  "These little fellows aren't so primitive," I muttered enviously. "Transmutation of metals by radiation — it's been a laboratory experiment in my own world, but here they actually use it."

  "It is quite simple, Jarl Keith," Frey stated. "They get the radioactive matter from the safer fringes of Muspelheim, the fire-world far beneath this land, from which we originally came."

  "But what about those plates of quartz they use as filters?"

  "They're not really quartz, but a synthetic substance the Alfings can make," he explained. "They can be adjusted to screen out any particular frequency of vibratory force desired. Thus the Alfings are able to apply the isolated radiation which the transmutation needs."

  We passed through two more of the alchemic workshops, and then reentered the dark tunnels.

  "Frey, will the dwarf king help us?" I asked in a low, anxious voice.

  "I don't know," Frey said doubtfully. "He may, if he thinks there's danger of Loki's release. The Alfings fear Loki as greatly as we do."

  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."