"Yes, Jarl Keith," said Frey. "That which we Aesir have feared for centuries has happened. The arch-devil has been released."
The blood seemed to leave my head as realization crashed home. The ancient rhyme on the rune key seemed to echo mockingly in my ears.
Bring me not home,
Lest Ragnarok come.
It had happened. I had brought the fateful rune key home. And now Loki and his monsters were free to lead the Jotun hosts in the last and most terrible attack against Asgard. I groaned at the thought of my own guilt, for it was all my responsibility. It was I, inspired by what spells of Loki I could not imagine, who had caused the rune key to be found. I had brought it into this hidden land to loose an incredibly evil menace that had lain dormant for centuries — yet conscious to add new torments and more vicious horrors to the old ones.
Freya had raised her face. She was looking at me with blue eyes that were bright with dread, her red lips quivering.
"But where are we?" I cried, trying to sit up. "How is it you're with us, Freya?"
"We are in Jotunheim, Jarl Keith," she whispered. "I have been held here since the Jotun raiders brought me here and took the rune key away. And you and Frey were brought here and prisoned with me but a few hours ago. You were unconscious — dying, I feared."
Her slim arm supported me as I sat up. Dazedly I stared around. We occupied a small stone cell, with walls that were of massive, damp blocks. The heavy wooden door was solidly closed. One tiny, barred window admitted pale daylight and barely enough air. Frey and Freya helped me as I rose to my feet from the rude hide couch where I had lain. I stumbled with their support to the window, and looked out at ancient Jotunheim.
Jotunheim crouched like a great, slumbering reptile on a low plateau above steaming marshes. A sluggish, black river wound from the rugged hills behind the city. Down past the stone walls, it oozed through the dank, brooding marshes to the distant sea.