"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.