A murmur of exultant agreement came from the other Aesir chieftains. The fact of war in the outer world seemed to stir them like a trumpet-blast.
“It has been long that the outer peoples have slumbered in soft, fat peace,” Brynhild declared. “Tell me of this war, stranger.”
Fallon pointed accusingly at Victor Heysing. “His people, the Germans, began the war. They have invaded the northland and attacked its people without reason, and my own outland countries seek to help the Norse defenders resist.”
Heysing took a step forward, speaking hastily to the listening daughter of Thor.
“It is not so, princess!” denied the Nazi. “My people are of the north themselves, blood-cousins of the Norse. We came into the northland only to protect our Norse friends from the degenerate outlanders who would have used them as tools for their own purposes.”
Helverson uttered a roar of anger. “The German lies! We Norse wished none of his ‘protection’!”
Fallon spoke earnestly to the girl, whose brilliant blue eyes were searching their faces during this hot dispute.
“Is it possible to leave this valley?” Fallon asked. “I have information that would help my people drive the invaders out of the northland, if I can get it to them.”
He waited tensely for the answer. He could not, in spite of everything, believe that he and Helverson were really dead. If they were not, it deepened the mystery of this unearthly fulfillment of the ancient legends of the gods. But it also meant that he was duty-bound to escape this uncanny place and get his information back to his commanders.
Brynhild spoke decisively. “You cannot leave the valley of Asgard, outlander. At least not until we have learned all the truth about this war of which you speak.”
She brooded, her chin upon her white hand. “We Aesir are tired of peace. Now that war has come again to the northland, it may be that once again we shall know the joy of battle!”
That electric flash came and went again in her eyes, fleeting revelation of a wild, fierce, untamed spirit.
Fallon protested. “But I must get out of here and get back to my own people!”
Brynhild’s blue gaze darkened stormily. Her silver voice flared. “No one here in Asgard says ‘must’ to the daughter of Thor, outlander!”
Helverson plucked at Fallon’s sleeve and whispered frantically. “Do not anger the goddess!”
Brynhild was continuing haughtily. “It is not often now that I ride forth into the outer snows with my Valkyr-maids. It has been our custom, when we do so, to bring back wounded men we happened to find, and give them life here. But none of them leaves this valley thereafter!”
Victor Heysing gave Fallon a taunting smile, as the German understood that the young American could not get away with his information.
The triumph in that smile infuriated Fallon. He felt desperate. He must somehow get out of this mysterious valley of ancient gods. The fate of an Allied attack on Narvik depended on his doing so.
His hand slipped inside his fur jacket and grasped the butt of his pistol. He suddenly flashed out the weapon and covered Brynhild with it. His lean face was dark and tense.
“This is an outland weapon,” he told her harshly. “It can kill you in an instant. You are going to allow me to leave this place.”
A roar of rage broke from the Aesir chieftains, and their swords rasped from their sheaths. The white lynx crouched and snarled, gathering itself to spring upon the American. Helverson, appalled by his action, seemed petrified by superstitious horror. “Keep, back, all of you!” Fallon shouted. “Your princess will die before you can touch me.”
It was bluff on Fallon’s part—wild, desperate bluff.
Brynhild was laughing! Sheer amusement rippled in her silver laughter as she looked down at Fallon. With a gesture, she had restrained the crouching lynx and the furious Aesir.
“Do you really think you could kill the daughter of Thor with that toy?” she mocked. “Why, stranger, you are mad, I think. Watch!”
And she leveled her hand in a swift, thrusting gesture. What followed was almost beyond Fallon’s comprehension.
Lightning seemed to leap from her hand, a flashing bolt of electric flame that struck his pistol and sent it flying through the air.
Fallon staggered, his whole arm suddenly numb from shock. He felt half-stunned, wholly unable as yet to believe that the girl above had actually wielded such force. He saw the awe on Helverson’s face, the amazement and sudden calculation on Heysing’s. But clearest in his dazed vision were the contemptuous blue eyes of Brynhild.
Magic-mistress of lightnings she might be, but that cool contempt in her face swept Fallon to a climax of unreasoning rage and despair. Heedless of consequences, he rushed forward at the girl on the dais.
CHAPTER IV
Magic Menace
Brynhild instantly moved her white hands faster than the eye could follow, in a curious weaving gesture. Her whole body seemed to flame.
Dancing brands of lightning blazed from her hands to form an awful, dazzling curtain of electric fire in front of her. Crashing thunder shook the great stone hall. Fallon recoiled staggeringly from that curtain of lightning—and swiftly, it was gone.
“Good God!” husked the American, staring at the girl with unbelieving eyes.
Roars of anger came from the Aesir captains. One of them, a tall, fair, sullen-faced chieftain, raised his sword to lunge at Fallon.
“Wait, Thialfi!” rang Brynhild’s silver command. “I said not that the man was to be killed.”
The chieftain called Thialfi halted, but protested angrily. “And why should he not be killed, when he has dared threaten one of us Aesir?”
“I rule the Aesir, cousin Thialfi,” she reminded imperiously. “You grow too presumptuous, I think—too much as your father Loki was.
She laughed softly, eyeing Fallon.
“This outlander has courage, even though he is not of the northern folk. He shall not die—yet.”
Fallon stood, still literally stunned by the incredible phenomenon that had almost cost his life. Was this wildly beautiful girl human? Could any human have evoked that crashing blaze of lightning?
Could any but a goddess have loosed such forces? A goddess who could control the very elements of nature? Magic of superhuman powers clung about this girl like a tangible and terrible aura.
Helverson’s awed whisper echoed his whirling thoughts. “She is, indeed, daughter of Thor, the storm-god of lightnings.”
Brynhild heard the Norwegian, and nodded her fair head. “Yes, Norse. man. I am daughter of Thor and granddaughter of Odin, and though Thor and Odin are gone now, I hold their wisdom and their power.”
Victor Heysing stepped forward.
The amazement on the Nazi’s blond, handsome face had now been replaced by a breathless eagerness and excitement.
“Princess, I never doubted your power,” the German said quickly. “Yet I am bewildered by all these things. My own people have for three thousand years reverenced the names of Odin and Thor and the other Aesir, yet we dreamed not that any of you still existed. Are you really the ancient gods?” Brynhild mused. “Are we gods? You of the outer world always thought so.
I remember how your world hailed me and my Valkyr-maids as goddesses when we rode forth, a thousand of your years ago.”
“A thousand years ago?” gasped Heysing. “Your pardon, princess—I do not presume to doubt. But if you Aesir are immortal—”
“I said not that we were immortal,” Brynhild answered impatiently. “A thousand of your outside world’s years equals but ten of our years. Time is slower in this valley—a hundred times slower.”
The shock of that revelation woke Mart Fallon’s numbed mind to life. Was it possible that that was what underlay all the awesome mystery of this valley of
the gods?
“You would not understand if I were to explain to you,” Brynhild was continuing, half-contemptuously. “Your outland wisdom is only a practical science of matter and machines. You have nothing of the deeper wisdom of cosmic powers and forces which we Aesir learned here.”
Her brilliant blue eyes brooded. “This much, I will tell you. Time is an attribute or dimension of space. And space, as you may be beginning to learn by now, is not static but is a curved, expanding sphere. The strain of expansion causes faults or weak spots in that space-time sphere—spots where time is foreshortened. This valley is such a spot. A year in our valley equals a hundred years outside it.
“It was three thousand of your years ago that my people, the Aesir, found this magic valley. They were but one of the Norse races of that time, warlike Vikings who followed their chieftain Odin through the northern wilderness in search of a new home. They came upon this valley and settled in it, and named it Asgard.
“Three thousand of your years ago that was—but only thirty of our years! Here, under the wise leadership of Odin, my people built their homes. And here Odin and his son Thor delved deep into the cosmic forces that are brought to a focus in this fault of the space-time sphere, and won for themselves such powers as your outer world knows not.”
Brynhild’s face was dreaming. “I was born in this valley Asgard, twenty years ago by my time—two thousand years ago by yours. I was but a little child when my grandfather Odin and my father Thor taught me the first rudiments of their wisdom. We Aesir were great, then. Rumor of our powers and our superhuman length of life drifted to the outer world, and the northland races out there worshipped us as gods.”
Bitterness came into her voice. “But pride and ambition brought tragedy among us, when I was still but a child. My own father’s cousin, the brilliant and evil Loki, aspired to replace my house as ruler of the Aesir. Dreadful battle came from Loki’s rebellion—battle in which not only he but Odin and my father Thor also met their deaths.”
The Aesir chieftain named Thialfi made angry protest to Brynhild. “Can you never forget my father’s rebellion? All that is dead and past now.”
The girl’s eyes flared at him momentarily, but then she relaxed. “Yes, all that is of the dead past now,” she admitted. “You know that I have never held your father’s evildoing against you, Thialfi. You were but a child then, as I was a child.”
Her golden head lifted in pride.
“But even as a child, I succeeded to the rulership of the Aesir, and inherited the powers of Odin and my father Thor over natural forces.”
“And you have ruled us with wisdom, niece Brynhild,” the stern-faced Tyr declared loyally. “It is not your fault that life has grown tame and wearisome for us in this peaceful valley.”
“This flat and featureless peace wearies me, too!” Brynhild exclaimed almost fiercely. “We Aesir were made for war, not for soft living. We rust and rot away our lives here, without the joy of battle.”
She made a scornful gesture. “But it would have been no use for us to have left our valley for the outer world. Until now, tame and ignoble peace has reigned out there in the northland for hundreds of their years.”
Mart Fallon had listened in deepening bewilderment and dismay. So this was the incredible reality behind the age-old legends of the Norse gods and their immortality and superhuman powers over nature?
It was logical enough, his dazed mind admitted. Granted that this secret valley in the northern wilderness was really a fault or weak spot in the space-time continuum, it followed that time here could be foreshortened so that a hundred days outside were but a day here. It followed, too, that this spot could well be the focus of tremendous natural forces whose mastery had been won by the rulers of these Aesir.
But, and this was what dismayed Fallon in his first realization, if that were true, then the hours he had already spent in this valley amounted to weeks or months in the outer world! By this time, the battle of Narvik would have been decided long ago. His plan to take his vital information back to his commanders was now hopelessly obsolete and useless.
Fallon became aware that Victor Heysing was speaking to the Aesir princess. The young Nazi officer seemed possessed by excitement,
“Princess, not all the outland peoples are tame and soft,” Heysing affirmed. “My own German people, who are blood-kin to you Norse, reject like yourselves the soft blandishments of peace in favor of the stern ideals of war.”
The Nazi’s voice had a ring of fanaticism. “We have a Leader, the greatest in the outside world. He has brought war back to the world, though the cowardly southern and western nations pleaded for peace. He has made of us a race of warriors who stride to conquest of all the world.”
Heysing leaned forward, his eyes glowing. “You Aesir could join us in that mighty battle, princess. A battle whose loot will be the world itself! You are a northern race like us. If you joined us, your powers over natural forces would sweep the soft peoples of the world before us!”
Fallon was thunderstruck. The Nazi, like himself, had realized that this valley was the focus of cosmic natural forces which somehow the daughter of Thor knew how to harness and use.
With characteristic opportunism, Heysing was seeking to enlist the unguessable power of those weapons upon the side of Hitler’s legions! He had proposed flattering alliance to the Aesir princess, meaning without doubt to use her and her powers as the tool of his conquest-minded country.
Brynhild’s eyes had flashed as she listened. “It is good to hear that one race of the outer world has remained hard and warlike!”
And the Aesir chieftains had become suddenly tense with fierce excitement.
“Princess Brynhild, I favor this man’s plan!” exclaimed Thialfi, a savage light on his sullen face now. “With you and your powers to lead us, and the hordes of his German race to follow us, we could loot the world!”
“At least, it would mean battle and action again instead of rotting away in this valley,” muttered the tall Aesir captain, Heimdall.
Appalled, Fallon burst into interruption. “Do you realize what this German would have you do?” he cried to Thor’s daughter. “He would have you join a leader whose hands are red with the blood of slaughtered nations, a nation that without pretext has attacked unoffending peoples.”
Brynhild looked down at the American with an expression of disdain. “I thought you were a warrior, outlander. Yet you talk as though war was horrible.”
“It is horrible,” Fallon declared from the depths of his feelings. “It is to end war forever that my people are fighting the German race.”
The daughter of Thor and the Aesir chieftains stared at him with a cold, biting contempt, as though he had said something shameful.
“By the Norns, the German spoke truth when he said that the other outland races are degenerate!” exclaimed Thialfi scornfully. “This fellow is fit only to be a thrall.”
“My people do not hold such cowardly beliefs,” put in Heysing proudly. “We exalt war and the warrior above all else.”
He looked up eagerly at Brynhild. “Will you join us, princess? Will you ally your powers to the only true warrior race of the outer world?”
“I say, let us join these Germans,” Thialfi declared, and there was a quick chorus of agreement from many of the Aesir lords.
“I remind you again that I rule the Aesir,” Brynhild flared at Loki’s son.
Until now, Helverson had stood beside Fallon, bewilderedly listening to the excited discussion. Now, for the first time, the big Norwegian spoke in his rumbling voice to the girl on the marble seat.
“You would not join the Germans?” he asked incredulously. “You are the Aesir, the ancient hero-gods of our Norse race. And the Germans are our enemies.”
Heysing hastily intervened. “We are not enemies of the Norse people,” h
e denied. “As I told you, we seek only to protect them from the cowardly western nations who would trick them for selfish purposes.”
The Nazi added quickly to Brynhild, “Once you Aesir appeared and joined us, all the northern peoples would fall in behind us. For your names have an ancient power in the hearts of the north.”
Fallon knew that the Nazi was right in that last claim. The appearance of the Aesir of ancient legend, led by Thor’s daughter herself, would swing age-old Scandinavian beliefs toward the side of the Germans.
Before the American could protest Heysing’s other falsehoods, Brynhild rose to her feet. Her blue eyes were brooding and thoughtful as she looked down at them.
“Lords of the Aesir, the decision on this matter is not to be made lightly,” she told them. “Before I decide, I shall take counsel of all the chieftains of our people. Summon them here for council tonight.”
Thialfi pointed to the Nazi. “With your permission, I’ll keep this man with me today. I wish to hear more of his plan.”
Brynhild nodded curtly. “But bring him to the council here in Valhalla to night.”
Her eyes rested a moment on Fallon’s dark, desperate face. “See that this man and his comrade make no attempt to leave the valley,” she ordered. “I make you responsible for them, Tyr.”
Her slim figure disappeared through a curtained doorway beside the dais, the white lynx padding silently at her side.
Heysing went with Thialfi, glancing back with covert triumph at the American. Fallon found Helverson plucking at his sleeve.
“I cannot understand,” the Norwegian said, his massive face anxious and puzzled. “These are the old gods of my people. Surely they would not join with the invaders who now devastate our land?”
“They won’t join the Nazis if I can help it,” Fallon said tautly. “Nels, we’ve got to stop that somehow! My God, that girl can control the lightning and forces of nature itself! If the Nazis get hold of her powers—”
The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Page 23