All around Stuart the laughter thundered--and was answered. The walls gave it back and echoed it. The bellowing laughter of gods deafened Stuart. The mists drifted away--were sucked down into the pit. They vanished. As though they fled from that evil laughter. Stuart stood in a chamber that must have occupied the entire base of that enormous tower. Behind him the abyss gaped. Before him a shifting veil of light hid whatever lay behind it. But all around, between monstrous pillars, were set thrones, ebon thrones fifty feet tall. On the thrones sat giants! Titan figures, armored in glittering mail, ringed Stuart, and instantly his mind fled back to half-forgotten folk-lore.... Asgard, Jotunheim, the lands of the giants and the gods. Thor and Odin, sly Loki and Baldur--they were all here, he thought, bearded colossi roaring their black laughter into the shaking air of the hall. Watching him from their height-- Then he looked up, and the giants were dwarfed. The chamber was roofless. At least he could see no roof. The pillars climbed up and up tremendously all around the walls that were hung with vast stretches of tapestry, till they dwindled to a pinpoint far above. The sheer magnitude of the tower made Stuart's mind rock dizzily. Still the laughter roared out. But now it died.... Thundered through the hall a voice ... deep ... resonant ... the voice of the Aesir. "_A human, brother!_" "_Aye! A human--and a mad one, to come here._" "_To enter the hall of the Aesir._" A red-bearded colossus bent down, his glacial blue eyes staring at Stuart. "_Shall I crush him?_" * * * * * Stuart sprang back as an immense hand swooped down like a falling tree upon him. Instinctively his hand flashed to his belt, and suddenly the red-beard was shouting laughter that the others echoed. "_He has courage._" "_Let him live._" "_Aye. Let him live. He may amuse us for a while...._" "_And then?_" "_Then the pit--with the others._" The others? Stuart slanted a glance downward. The silver mists had dissipated now, and he could see that the abyss was not bottomless. Its floor was fifty feet below the surface on which he stood, and a dozen figures were visible beneath. They stood motionless--like statues. A burly, leather-clad Earthmen who might have been whisked from some Plutonian mine; a slim, scantily clad Earthgirl, her hair powdered blue, her costume the shining sequin-suit of a tavern entertainer. A stocky, hunch-shouldered Venusian with his slate-gray skin; a Martian girl, seven feet tall, with limbs and features of curious delicacy, her hair piled high atop that narrow skull. Another Earthman--a thin, pale, clerklike fellow. A white-skinned, handsome Callistan native, looking like Apollo, and, like all Callistans, harboring the cold savagery of a demon behind that smooth mask.