dangle in full view.
'The rune key!' he whispered.
Everyone in great Valhalla was speechless, staring in horror at the ancient gold cylinder that hung outside my coat.
'The rune key!' Odin repeated hoarsely. 'It has come back to Asgard. This is the day for which dark Loki has waited!'
Chapter VI
Ancient Science
The frozen stillness in Valhalla was appalling. Aesir nobles and warriors all seemed turned to stone as they stared at the golden cylinder hanging from my neck. I could hear the torches guttering, the snap of logs on the blazing hearth, and the dull moan of the sea wind around Valhalla's lofty eaves. It was as though the feast of the Aesir had been smitten by chill terror.
'Where did you get that key, Jarl Keith?' Odin asked me hoarsely.
'Why, my comrades fished it out of the sea beyond the ice-pack — beyond Niffleheim,' I answered bewilderedly.
A deep groan went up from the entire gathering. I turned to them unhappily, feeling like a hunted animal that knows it has done no wrong, yet still is persecuted.
'Why did you bring it into this land?' Odin demanded fiercely.
'I don't know,' I blurted. Remembering the queer alien hunch that had made me find the key, I added: 'Some strange whim in my mind told me where it was and warned me not to throw it away.'
'Loki's work!' Odin whispered. 'The evil one has cast forces abroad that have brought back the rune key that will set him free.'
Thor's face flamed crimson as he sprang to his feet, clutching his mighty weapon.
'The arch-traitor still seeks to ruin Asgard and the Aesir!' he roared in overpowering rage. 'Oh, that I could bring Miolnir down upon his skull this moment!'
'Even your strength and mighty weapon would fail against the dark science of Loki,' Odin said somberly.
I looked down bewilderedly at the gold cylinder hanging on my chest. Into my mind flashed the last lines of the rune-rhyme graven on it.
Those lines seemed to throb in my mind like a beating drum of black, dire menace that cannot be seen yet can be felt.
'I do not understand, lord Odin,' I faltered. 'Have I done wrong in bringing this small and apparently harmless key into your land?'
'Because you brought it,' Odin stated, calm at last, 'we are threatened with doom. A terrible menace has been a shadow over us for all these long centuries. That is the key which alone can loose the evil traitor Loki, who long has been prisoned.'
When he saw me pale at his words, his deep, heavy voice rumbled comfortingly through the frozen silence.
'It is not your fault, Jarl Keith. I see it all now. It was Loki's power that brought you and the rune key here. Yes, from the gloomy prison where his body lies helpless, Loki's mind reached forth through his deep craft of scientific powers. He caused you to fish that rune key from the sea, and raised the storm that blew you hither. Aye, and it was to take from you the key that would free their dark lord that the Jotuns attacked you when you arrived.'
'But who is Loki?' I asked bewilderedly. 'In the old myths of the northland, there was a tale of a traitor by that name, who sought to destroy you—'
'Aye, a black traitor was accursed Loki!' shouted Thor. 'The shame and the curse of the Aesir, since first he was born.'
'Aye, traitor he was, indeed,' said Odin somberly. 'Yet long ago, when we dwelt in the underworld of Muspelheim, Loki was the most honored of the Aesir, next to myself. Handsome, valiant, cunning, and learned, he was second only to me among the Aesir. But Loki, the greatest scientist of my people, longed for power. His experiments endangered us all, time and again. Finally, against my orders, Loki brought catastrophe on our great and lovely underworld.'
'Then Loki was the scientist you told me of!' I exclaimed. 'He kindled the atomic fires of Muspelheim and nearly destroyed you!'
Odin nodded. 'Loki was that rash scientist of whom I spoke. Seeking to kindle a radiation that would keep us ever young, he touched off atomic fires that engulfed Muspelheim and forced us to flee to this upper world. I should have punished Loki then for his reckless disobedience. But I did not, because the flood of radiation would keep us almost immortal in this land. Instead I warned him that nobody must tamper further with the raving atomic fires below.
'Loki agreed to tamper no more with those awful forces. But his promise was worth nothing. Secretly, here in Asgard, he traveled back into fiery Muspelheim, and began experimenting again. He hoped to forge such tremendous weapons from those forces that he could displace me as ruler of the Aesir and conquer all Earth. My son Baldur discovered Loki's forbidden researches in deep Muspelheim. To prevent Baldur from exposing him, Loki slew him. But he had already exposed himself.
'Loki fled from Asgard. Taking with him his two hideous pets, the wolf Fenris and the Midgard snake, he fled to dark Jotunheim. There he allied himself with the brutal Jotuns. He knew they hated the Aesir, so he incited them to attack us, promising that with his scientific powers, he would help them conquer and sack Asgard.
'That was the time of which I told you, Jarl Keith, when surprise and treachery almost enabled the Jotuns to conquer us. The Jotuns, led by Loki and aided by the hellish forces his science devised, would have overcome us had I not used my own scientific powers to defeat Loki's and had we not all fought valiantly. We repelled the Jotuns with great slaughter.'
Thor grinned and nodded, but his giant face reddened with hatred as Odin continued.
'Defeated, Loki fled with his wolf and serpent into the labyrinth of caves in Midgard. We followed him to the cave in which he hid, but Loki, in his extremity, bargained cunningly for his life. Loki called out to us: 'I have an instrument which can destroy all Asgard and the Aesir, by loosing the sea upon the atomic fires of Muspelheim. Unless you agree to spare my life, I will use that secret and you will all perish with me.''
''We agree then to spare your life, Loki,' I answered. 'You have our pledge, if you surrender that deadly instrument.' Loki surrendered the instrument to me. And then I told him: 'We agreed to spare your life, Loki — but that is all! Though you shall remain alive, you will no longer be a menace to us, for we shall prison you eternally in this cave to which you fled.'
'And we did that to Loki, Jarl Keith. We cast him into a state of suspended animation by filling his cave with a gas whose scientific secret I had discovered. That gas paralyzed the functions of the body by freezing, but left the mind conscious as ever. Into that waking, frozen sleep we cast Loki and his two hideous pets. Then we closed that cave forever with a door that was not of metal or stone, but of invulnerable force.
'That wall of energy was a screen of vibrations controlled by the generator inside a tiny projector. You, Jarl Keith, have that projector — the rune key! Only the rune key can unlock the door of Loki's cave-prison. Until it is unlocked, Loki must lie there with his two dreadful familiars in suspended animation.
'But though Loki's body lies frozen, his mind is awake and active, and he seeks by mental forces to free
