The Face in the Frost

The two of them sat, later in the evening, at a scallop-edged wooden table on which four gray squares of bright moonlight lay. In the corner, a little fire of pine chunks burned behind a thick iron grate pierced with quatrefoils. On the table were two greasy tin plates, a couple of half-full mugs of cider, and a squashed-down tallow candle in a green copper dish. A brass cylinder marked 'Salt' held thick peeling cigars-the innkeeper rolled them himself-and Prospero lit one from the candle. Roger was trying to fight a bulbous black pipe that looked like an avocado on a stick. Smoke, swirling in graceful slow strands, drifted toward the fieldstone chimney.

'All right,' said Prospero. 'You go first. What happened?'

'Well,' said Roger, 'I was sitting on the stump, smoking, just as I am now, and the first odd thing I noticed was the Hall of Records. It looked strange, as if the moon were shining on it and not on anything else. It should have been in shadow, with those oak trees and pines all around, and besides, it must have been overcast. But, I didn't think of that. I stared at the door, and then it opened, and you-or someone I thought was you-came out. You walked up to me and grabbed my arm, and your hand seemed to be made out of frozen sticks. 'Come on,' you said. 'We've got to get away from here.' So, I followed you off into the forest, and when we were deep inside, you shriveled with a sound like several voices holding the same dead note. All that was left was a log made of ashes-as if a piece of wood had burned all the way through while keeping its original shape. I didn't know what to do. At first, I thought that the wizard with the book had finally got you; I wept, raged, and beat on trees with my fists. When I was exhausted, I realized that I was lost. I had left my compass in my bag, which was back at the stump with my staff. So, I sat under a big ugly elm all night, and in the morning, I found my way back to the Hall. My bag and staff had been pulled into some brambles, and you, of course, were gone, I went in and read the passage in the Register. It wasn't hard to find, because you had propped the book open.'

'What did you think when you read it?' Prospero was staring at him with a pained smile.

'I was surprised to see Melichus' name. It looks as though he was the foreigner who took the book from the monk at Glastonbury. If the Register is right, Melichus deserved his death.'

'He's not dead.'

Roger dropped the avocado pipe into the tin plate, making a sound that startled both of them. He looked at Prospero's long moonlit face as if he might be another ghost, or Melichus himself.

Prospero knew what Roger was thinking, and he started to laugh. 'No, I'm not Melichus or a log traveling incognito. But, he is alive.'

'I didn't really think you were he,' said Roger, blushing a little. 'But, how did he escape from that blazing forest?'

'He never was in it. Go on, though. Why did you go to Briar Hill if you thought Melichus was dead?''

'I thought some assistant might have taken the book after the mob...'

'You're close,' said Prospero.

'I can see you have your revelations,' said Roger. 'Anyway, I went to Briar Hill, but it took me about two days because I got on the wrong road. Did you know that I left my map-book on your kitchen table? Mrs. Durfey is probably using it to wrap sandwiches in. Where was I? Oh yes. I got to Briar Hill and found your mark at the Gorgon's Head. Nicholas Archer indeed. I could have done better. Why not say you were Bishop Lanfranc?'

'I left my miter in the closet,' said Prospero. 'Go on.'

'Well, I paid my bill at the inn and went to the ruins of Melichus' cottage to see what I could see, and I spent several hours poking around among rot­ten timbers and broken glass. The floor had fallen through, and I could see there was a basement, so I went down-the steps are still there-and I found a door under some half-burned boards. Just a door, not hidden like the one in your root cellar, but for the same purpose, I doubt if the villagers have noticed it, because they probably haven't touched the place, except to paint curses on the walls. At any rate, the door opened into a tunnel. Not a vaulted and decorated one like yours, but a low muddy thing with roots sticking through the ceiling. You have to go all the way down bent over. After a little while, I saw light, but not daylight. Thin moonlight, wavery, like northern lights. Remember, this was no later than four in the afternoon. I came out into a little grove of trees by a pond. It was winter. Black ice with little animals frozen into it just below the surface. From their look, they had been trying to get out. Trees bent over to the ground by ice, and overhead, in a flat black sky, a featureless moon. I stood there by the edge of the pond for quite some time, and then, I heard a thin little crack at the far end. I saw a jagged pencil line start in the ice. It ran-and ran is the right word-across the pond, swerving a little, but headed for me, Before it got to the bank where I had been standing, I was halfway up the tunnel. I don't think anyone can reach that place without going through that passage.'

'I'll be happy if I never find it,' said Prospero, and he looked out the window at the rising moon, which, fortunately, had a face. 'What did you do after that?'

'I decided to spend another night at the inn, and that is what convinced me that I ought to go north. At first, the people at the inn were a little scared of me. I gather you gave them some kind of fright. But, they decided that I was a monk, and that I had come to exorcize the cottage, so everything went well. That is, they talked to me in the common room that night. But, the talk was not comfortable. There were several travelers there from the north, and they were convinced that witches were at work in their towns. What worried me most was the kind of story they told. Not the usual things of wells being poisoned, toads found in beds, ghosts rapping at windows. They talked about signboards creaking in the wind, trees casting odd shadows, dark cellar-ways that used to scare only children. And, cloaks fluttering, and moths brushing faces in dark rooms. I tried to sleep that night, but I couldn't, so I packed up, left a few coins on the bed-not in the fireplace-and headed north. I was given a ride by a hay wagon, and got ahead of you that way, I guess. But, even then you must have stopped along the way.'

'Yes,' said Prospero. 'I was detained. Let me tell you about it.'

Without any of his usual storytellers flair, Prospero told Roger what had happened: the feverish night in the Hall of Records, the stone and the fire, and the marks on his door at the Gorgon's Head. He gave a short and very reticent description of what had happened in the Empty Forest, and an account of the Five Dials incident that was very vague, so vague that Roger had to keep asking him questions about his experience. After Prospero had finished, he went over to the fire and started poking it.

'So, Melichus has the book,' said Roger. 'And, he sent his apprentice out to face the mob while he got out the back way.'

'Yes,' said Prospero, with his back to Roger. 'And now, we know why he wants to kill me.'

'We do? If you do, tell me, for heaven's sake!'

Prospero looked very surprised when he turned around. 'You mean to say that I never told you? I thought of it immediately when I saw Melichus' name in the Register. That's why I had to find out if he was alive.'

'Tell me,' said Roger, exasperated, 'or do I have to put you to the Inquisitorial Question?'

'I'm sorry,' said Prospero, smiling, 'I didn't mean to be so suspenseful. It's the green-glass paperweight.'

Roger stared. 'I know sorcerers aren't supposed to be ignorant, but what is the green-glass paperweight?'

Prospero sat down. 'It all started when Melichus and I were learning magic from Michael Scott. You knew that, didn't you?'

'Yes, yes. Don't be sarcastic.'

'Well, before we could be initiated into the order, we had to spend several months living together in a lonely valley in the mountains up north. We lived in a cottage that is still there, as far as I know, though I haven't visited the place since we left all those years ago. I imagine there's a whole village up there now. The grass is good for sheep. At any rate, our final task was to make something together, some little magic object put together by our combined powers. It wasn't easy working with Melichus, and we quarreled several times before we finished, He always enjoyed doing things by himself, and as soon as we were through, he left with a 'Well, that's over!' look at me. I never saw him again.'

'What did you make?'

'We made a little green-glass thing. I usually think of it as a paperweight, because that's what I'd use it for if I had it at home. I dream about it some­times. It is made of four transparent green globes. Three of them always show snow falling in some desolate and, to my mind, sinister little place. Neither of us knew where it was. A road crossing with high banks, bare trees, and a leaning stone marker at the place where the roads meet. It always