Loki shrugged. "There can be no great victory without great danger, outlander. I had a vision of leading the Aesir to undreamed-of heights of power and wisdom, though by a road beset with vast perils. I was willing to risk those perils, to be great or to die. But dull Odin blocked my path. He said: 'It is not good to endanger all the world to gain power and learning for ourselves.'
"The Aesir agreed with him, and turned from me and my vaulting dreams. I would have made them like eagles soaring into the sky. But they preferred to follow Odin and live out their lives in dull, accustomed routine."
Loki's eyes blazed, and his graceful form stiffened on the black throne as he spoke. And I could not help feeling sympathy with him. No real scientist could willingly submit to suppression of his desire to know, his yearning to master the laws of nature. Loki's blue eyes fastened on me, and he smiled thoughtfully, his passion fading.
"I read your mind, Jarl Keith," he said quickly, "and I see that you think the same as I."
"Not your lust for power," I snapped.
"Do not deny it," he said. "You are of my own breed, Jarl Keith. We are more alike than any others in this land. For just as I risked my own fate and that of my people to win new knowledge and power, so you, who are also a scientist and searcher after truth, came northward into danger and hardship to search for new, strange truth. Yes, we two are of the same minds."
Though his voice rang with sincerity, I fought mentally against his seductive thoughts.
"It is because we are so much alike," he continued, "that I was able to fling the web of my suggestion into your brain. Though you were far away on your ship beyond the ice, yet I could direct you to recover the sunken rune key."
"How could you do that, Loki?" I asked with intense interest. "How could your will range far when your body was held in suspended animation in that prison-cave?"
"You outlanders have concentrated more on mechanical devices than on the subtler forces of science. Otherwise, you would understand better the nature of the mind. The brain is really an electro-chemical generator, and thought is the electric current it generates. A brain which has developed the power can fling its web of electric thought-impulses abroad and into another brain. It can see with the senses of that other brain and even somewhat direct its physical body.