We stood petrified by horror in that foggy, stone-walled corridor, gazing cataleptically at the hideous creature whose reptilian head was rearing up from the curling white mists. Freya's slim figure had shrunk against me with a choking cry. Frey stood in front of us, his sword raised, his face wild as he looked up at the looming head.
The hideous, abnormally huge coils could only be glimpsed in the mists beyond. But the giant spade-shaped head that hung above us was clear to our appalled vision. The enormous, opaline eyes were coldly brilliant as they stared down at us.
In that moment of stupefying horror, I recognized the intelligence in those unwinking reptilian eyes. This ser- pent of a bygone age had lived on for centuries in this land of eternal youth, with its master Loki and wolf Fenris. It had acquired an intelligence comparable with the human. A strange mind shone from those coldly malignant eyes.
"The Midgard snake!" Frey whispered.
"Jarl Keith!" Freya screamed to me.
The great head of the snake Iormungandr abruptly darted toward us. Frey struck out madly with his sword. I saw the blade slash into the scaly neck. But it caused only a shallow wound from which merely a little black blood oozed.
The Midgard serpent recoiled, however. Its opaline eyes flamed with rage. From the jaws of the monster, with a terrific hiss, came a cloud of fine green spray that flew toward Frey. He reeled back, covered by that weird vapor. But I leaped forward, dragging him and Freya ahead. I saw our single chance. The momentary recoil of the serpent had left open the mouth of a corridor on the right!
"Quick!" I cried, pulling them toward the black passage.
Frey seemed blinded by the green spray of the serpent. The monster's vast coils were twitching with rage, its head swaying angrily forward again. But we plunged safely into that branching corridor. It was utterly dark. As we stumbled forward in it, I heard a distant babble of alarm from the upper levels of the Jotun palace.
"The Jotuns will be after us," I cautioned. "Loki will be warned of our escape."