The Face in the Frost

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Prospero walked quickly along the Great South Road, and as he walked, he argued with himself. Sometimes he would stop and wave his staff at some objection he was trying to dismiss, or he would speak aloud phrases like "Of course not!" or "Spared me out of good will, did he?" But, after a while, he walked more slowly and talked less. When he came to a mossy stone bench that was half sunk into a muddy red clay bank, he sat down on it, put his head in his hands, and cried. After a while, he looked up and wiped his eyes with a big linen handkerchief.

"Well," he said, I can't allow myself to believe that Roger is dead. I think whoever-he-is would have killed me too if he had had the power. He tried before, didn't he? Roger must be alive. But then, where is he? At any rate, I have to go on. There's something I've got to find out." He got up and started out again.

The day cleared up as Prospero walked along, and it was a bright hot noon when he came to the place where the Great South Road crosses the Sea Road, which runs from the well springs of the Pipestone River to the sea forts on the western coast. At this major crossroads was a gallows tree, a huge oak held together by brass hoops bolted around the pitted and barkless trunk-it had been dead for the last ten years. People told stories about a time, three centuries before, when bodies hung from every limb. That was during the Seven Princes' War, which had left the South Kingdom a smoking land of burned cities, leveled fortresses, and trampled wheat fields. It was the last civil war the South Kingdom ever had, but it was bad enough to bring on the Long Plague, which killed so many that even by the time of this story, the country was still under-populated.

The tree had not been used much since the Seven Princes' War, and it had not been used at all after the grandfather of the present Duke Anselm abolished the death penalty in his lands. That is why Prospero was shocked and horrified to see a body dangling from one dead limb. He was relieved a minute later, though still puzzled, when he saw that it was a crude straw dummy in a ragged brown robe. A piece of paper was pinned to its chest and when he got close enough to read it, Prospero was shocked again. The word. "Wizard" was written there in the three principal languages of the South, and under it were large ugly runes that not many people knew about. They were used when one magician wanted to destroy another.

Prospero stared at the swinging manikin, and after a little thought decided to leave it was, since he knew that rune-spells were sometimes activated when you tried to burn the effigy. Now, before he set out again, he took out a wrinkled map-book that had main routes marked in red, and spent some time tracing the twistings of the Sea Road with his finger. Briar Hill was still half a day's walk away, and though he was tired from lack of sleep, he knew that he did not dare to try camping overnight on the road. He had felt a foreboding long before he came to the tree, and as he walked on into a smeary crimson sunset, his fear grew. For some time, he had been nagged by the maddening feeling that someone was moving in the thickets near the road or waiting just out of sight around a bend. As the last dark fringe of light faded over the long grassy ridges, Prospero stopped at the bottom of a low hill and listened. A little way behind him, started by something, a small stone began to roll, and it rolled until it came to rest at his feet. There was nothing against the pear-green sky at the top of the hill. Prospero looked at the stone curiously and turned to go on.

He had not gone a mile when he saw, off in a clearing beyond some beech trees, the light of a campfire. At least there'll be someone to talk to, he thought, and he stepped off the road into the swishing wet grass. But, as Prospero got near the fire, he saw that there was no one tending it and that it and that it was burning in a very strange way. The flames moved back and forth as if blown by suddenly shifting breezes. As he watched, the movement became rhythmical. Prospero looked about him with growing fear, and he noticed that there was a little stream running nearby. He was drawn by what he first took to be a reflection of the firelight on the water.

But, as he knelt by the stream, he saw that the faint glow came from beneath the surface of the water. There on the bottom, in a speckled green trembling light, was a smooth triangular stone, and on it was painted his face. The moving water was slowly flaking away the paint, or whatever it was, and the face appeared to be slowly decomposing. He saw a thin film, like a piece of dead skin, wriggle off the portrait-mask and float away down the stream. And the face underneath... Prospero felt his own hands on his wet cheeks.

Against all his instinct, he plunged his own hands into the greasy-feeling, incredibly cold water and picked up the stone. Without looking at it, and holding it at arm's length as if it were a rotten dead bird, he took it to the fire, which was dancing faster now-it was moving to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. He knew the words that must have been said. "When the fire dies, let him die too."

He pulled a burning stick out of the fire and held it to the painted stone as he carefully recited a spell he could just barely remember. When the face on the stone was completely blackened, the thing turned to an awful viscous mush in his hand, like a potato left in a damp dark cellar. With a disgusted shudder and a quick jerk of his left arm, Prospero threw the pulpy thing into the stream, where it hit with a gulping sound. Now, the whole stream began to boil, and out of the lurching, hissing water rose a smoke shape with arms. It moved toward Prospero and settled around him in swaying layers of mist. He felt as if his eyes were made of blank white chalk. And, the thing was throbbing, to pump the life out of him. Prospero stared with open eyes into that stony nothingness, and he shouted a word that sorcerers can only speak a few times in their lives. The whiteness began to break, and he could see night through the cracking clouds. Now, he began to speak like someone reciting a lesson: "Michael Scott is buried in Melrose Abbey. A light burns in his tomb day and night. And, it is stronger than your freezing white. Go! In his name, go!"

The mist blew away, and Prospero was standing in a starlit clearing full of the welcome noise of strident crickets. The fire was out, but he stepped on all the embers and made signs in the air over the black sunken heap of sticks. Now, he was alone, and he stood panting and sweating as a cool wind smelling of wood smoke blew in his face. With a sudden, stiff, stooping movement, he grabbed his staff and bag and walked back toward the road.

Suddenly, he heard a loud noise in the distance, and he was about to get ready for another attack when he recognized the sound. It was a wagon of some kind jolting along the rutty road. Prospero took out his bent and knobby pipe and lit it, and before long, a rattling horse-drawn wagon loaded with split logs came around the bend. By the haloed light of two swaying oil lanterns, Prospero could see the driver, a big kind-looking man in a fringed green jacket.

"Hello there!" Prospero shouted. "Which way are you going?"

"Briar Hill. I live there. Would you like a ride?"

"I certainly would," said Prospero.

He threw his satchel into the back and climbed up alongside the driver. Before long, Prospero was telling stories about the great castle which had stood on the site of Briar Hill, and the driver was nodding and listening appreciatively. The road wound more now and began to climb steep rounded hills covered with shaggy grass and bent old apple trees. After several hours of bumping over this twisting trail, they came to the bottom of one hill that was much higher than the rest. It was surrounded at its base by a very thick, cruel-looking thorn hedge, originally the outer wall of the castle that had stood on the hill until the Seven Princes' War, when it was taken and partially torn down. Many of the houses of Briar Hill were built with stones from this castle, and the sprawling briar tree that gave the town its name still grew in what was once a courtyard. One or two high jagged walls, pierced with cross-shaped loopholes and long narrow windows, still stood in odd places, up against homes or blocking off alleyways. The two openings in the hedge, on the east and west sides of the hill, had once been guarded by bronze doors and low stone watchtowers. But, at this time, there was only a night watch­man, who waved his bull's-eye lantern at the lumber wagon as it went in.

As the wagon bumped and jolted into the moonlit town square, Prospero looked around at the houses, mostly thatched, comfortable-looking places with half-timbered and overhanging second stories. Between two of these, he saw the roofless, burned-out shell of a one-story stone cottage. The front wall was covered with complicated hex signs that must have been painted and repainted over the years. Above the door was a Gothic M with many lines drawn through it in red paint.

"Well," said the driver, reining in the horses, "here we are. If you want an inn, there's the Gorgon's Head over there."

"Thanks," said Prospero. "I can't tell you how much I appreciated that ride." I can't tell you, he thought, because if I did, you and the other towns­folk would probably escort me to the west gate. Prospero had a rough idea of the popularity of magicians in a town like this. As the wagon rolled away, he stood in the dusty street a minute, wondering whether he ought to go to Melichus' house. Well, maybe in the morning.

He crossed the square to the Gorgon's Head, which was named for some­thing that must have been part of the old castle: a stone monster with bulging eyes and wrinkled protruding tongue. The marvelously ugly head stood in a niche over the inn door, and it was badly copied on a signboard outside.

Prospero dearly wanted to reach up with his staff and make the gorgons tongue go in and out, but he was afraid someone might be watching him, so he went on inside and arranged for a room. When the landlord brought out the guest book, Prospero thought for a full minute before signing. The man looked at him strangely.

"Oh, come now." he said. "It can't take that long to think of your name."

"Hm? Oh no," said Prospero "I was just noticing that rusty old broadsword over the mantel. I'll bet there's a story behind that."

There certainly was, and a very tedious one, but by the time the land­lord had finished telling it, Prospero had thought of a name he might use. He didn't know for sure if the people here had heard of him, but a name like Prospero was not common and it was the kind a magician might have. He signed the guest book as Nicholas Archer of Brakespeare (Brakespeare was the name of the village near Prospero's home), adding his usual loop-and-squiggle device under the name, in case Roger should come this way looking for him.

Though he was tired, Prospero played several games of tarot and old-man's-hatchet with the other guests in the common room, and after a supper of crusty veal pie and brown beer, he went up the gritty stone stairs to his bedchamber. It was the end of August, but the night was chilly, so a small fire had been built in the little fireplace, which was carved to look like a gaping toothy mouth. Prospero stood by the window and looked across the square at the tumbled ruins of Melichus' cottage. He knew what he had to do the next day and he did not like it at all.

But, he shrugged and went to his satchel, and from it, he took his large manuscript magic book and a mahogany tobacco box. The inn provided a rack of fresh clay pipes; Prospero took one, lit it, and sat down in an ugly, but comfortable wooden chair near the fireplace. Villagers then did not usually read in the bedrooms of inns, if they read at all, so there was no lamp other than a single bedside candle in a brass holder. But, Prospero had come prepared: He reached into the tobacco box, and out of the shaggy brown strands he pulled a small silver snuffbox. He set it on the floor beside him and rapped it twice with his ring finger. There was a ping, the box popped open, and out of it grew what looked like a copper sunflower stalk, which sprouted to the height of four feet. The stalk burst into bloom, and a hissing gaseous flower started to dance over Prospero's head, casting a bright yellow light around the man and his chair. He had taken the precaution of closing the inside shutters of the only window, and his staff, though it leaned lightly on the door, was capable of keeping out anyone who did not want to smash his way in with an ax.

Prospero leafed through the book till he came to a section with the black-letter heading "Necromancy" These pages did not have the grease stains and bottle marks that the others did, because Prospero had never had to use this section of his book. Years before, many years before, he had copied down what Michael Scott had taught him. Now, like a novice, he pored over pentagrams and circles, and his long tobacco-stained forefinger ran back and forth over strange curlicued words and long dark-sounding chants. He read for about an hour, and then, though he was trying to stay awake, he slumped farther and farther forward. The pipe slipped out of his left hand and broke with a little pop on the hearthstone, scattering dots of red ash that soon went out. The book slid off his knees onto the floor, and the light-bloom, now that Prospero did not need it, went out and shrank on withering stalk into its box.

Prospero dreamed at first that he was home, letting himself in the back door on a bright moonlit night The gargoyles over the back porch shone gray, and one reached down to touch his hat as he went in. He went up the stairs to his bed. But, the door of his bedroom kept opening and he had to get up to shut it over and over again. Then, a storm arose outside and white things shrieked past the window, scratching at the pane. The door of his room opened again slowly, and the front door flew in with a crash that broke the glass window. Prospero got halfway down the stairs, and from there, he saw a man in the doorway. The man's shadow stretched across the room, and he was beckoning to Prospero. Then, Prospero found himself running through a forest at night, and behind him floated large silent owls. They drifted and hung like paper lanterns, and their impossibly big eyes glowed yellow. When one owl scraped him, he shuddered violently, for it felt like a hollow parchment husk. All of Prospero's fear of dry insect shells, crackling, peeling, dusty things with skeletal limbs, choked him and made him thrash around in the chair until he woke up.

Immediately, he sat up straight and looked around the dark room. Nothing was wrong. He shook the ashes off his lap and went to the window to open the heavy shutters and let in the chilly night. Across the empty square, the stretched mask of an orange-brown moon was setting behind the wreckage of Melichus' house. The briar tree hissed and tossed a little and then was quiet. Prospero left the window and checked the staff, which was still propped against the door. He went to the plain oak bed, turned back the sheets that smelled a little of cedar nuts, and stretched out under the blankets till his feet touched the solid footboard. Prospero slept quietly till morning, dreaming only, as far as he could remember, of floating over housetops in a balloon. He would reach down and spin the weathercocks with his hand.