The Face in the Frost

looked, or rather felt, as though someone were about to come up one of the roads. But, no one ever did. The fourth globe could be used as a conventional seeing glass, though it showed only places that you knew about or had visited Melichus lost interest in it almost as soon as we had finished it.'

'Why didn't you take it with you? Competition wouldn't hurt that insufferable mirror of yours.'

'I couldn't take it, and neither could Melichus. The night before we were to put the final spell on it, we both dreamed the same dream. In it, we were told that the thing could not be taken from the house unless the two of us took it together, each actually touching it with his hand. And then, we could never let it go if we wanted to keep it. It would be like being chained together. Neither of us knows-unless he has found out somehow-what would happen if one of us tried to take it away.'

'What would happen if one of you died?'

'The other would get the thing. He could take it away, if he felt like going all the way up into the mountains of the North Kingdom for what may be only a magician's toy. But,, I'm sure he doesn't think it's just a toy, and I don't either. I told you that I dream about it. And, sometimes when I'm traveling in the winter, I come to a place that looks a lot like the one in the glasses. I get the strangest feeling, and I wait a moment to see if something will happen. Nothing does, but the feeling is very odd.'

'I still don't see,' said Roger, 'why he would want to kill you because of that thing.'

Prospero looked nervously out the window, as if he expected to see Melichus coming up the moonlit road toward the inn.

'Think,' he said, 'of all the years-fifty now-that he has been learning to use that terrible book. Think of the things he must have done. It has meant giving up all the rest of his life, anything else that he might have been doing before he started to decipher those words. And, he's alone. I'm almost certain he has no human help now. He has those things he has sent to terrify me, but I doubt if they are much company. If anyone had a share in what he was doing, he would be afraid that the sharer would try to steal the book, or burn it, or use it against him. Well, I have a share in his power, through that little piece of glass, the magic object that I might be able to use against him. I might be able to wipe out all his work. The idea of it must make his thoughts murderous.'

'Why didn't he kill you at the Hall, then?'

'I don't think he could, yet. The cloak, the moth, and those things in gray might have scared me to death, but I'm sure now that they couldn't have hurt me. Or, you. The painted stone and the fire are black magic, as you well know. Good old-fashioned black magic. But, I am still strong enough to undo spells. Some spells. The 'village' of Five Dials was beyond my powers.'

'He may have given up on you for the time being,' said Roger. 'From what I heard at Briar Hill, he must be going on with his original plans. We can hope that he has lost track of you.'

'I hope so. We've got to get to that cottage, though I can imagine what he has waiting for us there. He is getting terribly strong. Have you ever seen anything like this?'

Prospero reached carefully into his pocket and brought out the gray-veined maple leaf. It lay there for a few seconds in the candlelight, and then, it started to crawl like a worm, humping in the middle and then straightening out. Roger grabbed it and held it in the flame, where it twisted and blackened into a sticky tar lump. He walked across the room and threw the thing into the fire.

'I've seen those trees on the hill,' he said. 'And, I've seen more on the road. All the trees are beginning to turn, and it's only the first of September. It's cold, too, for this time of year. I think we had better get started tomorrow.'

In his room, a tilting, hump-floored box in the second-story overhang, Prospero stood by the window while the warming pan was heating his sheets. His hand scraped against a crusty iron bracket that held an old prayer book, Something for those guests with night fears. The book, by now a foxed clump of loose leaves, was held together by a piece of cloth tied around the middle.

Prospero pulled loose the bowknot and turned over the pages. He knew all the prayers, and he knew that most of them were useless unless you knew the right place to put the stresses and what the notes of the chant should be. A real magician could shake the walls with some of them. With a quick push, Prospero unstuck the little window. Down below, the road ran past the front door of the inn. He chose the famous prayer that contains the phrase 'negotium perambulans in tenebris,' and he began to sing it in a loud voice, rising to held high notes at the middle and the end of each line. He got his answer. Out of the dark willow thicket opposite the inn a little cloud of dead leaves flew. They spun a dusty whirlwind in the middle of the road, until one shot up at Prospero's open window. His hand was on the latch, and the slamming of the black wooden frame was instantly followed by a splat. The leaf slid down the window, streaking it with the wet sticky gobs of an insect's innards.

8

8

Around two in the morning, Prospero woke up, and his feet were on the cold floor before he knew what had awakened him. Downstairs, someone was pounding on the big front door. They were heavy resonant blows, not made with a fist, but with something harder, like the butt end of a sword. Resisting the urge to throw open the window and shout insults, Prospero got up and looked through the glass. He had been about to light a candle, but he put it down now and opened the window slowly, so that he could hear what was being said. There were soldiers down there, mail-shirted pike men in rusty soup-plate helmets. They carried saw-toothed bills, blunt-ended broadswords, maces, and battle-axes. Even in the waning moonlight, Prospero could see that their equipment was dirty and corroded; some of the pike points were cockeyed, and only half of the men-there were fifty altogether that he could see-wore coats of arms of any kind. Those that did had the badly sewn-on emblems of some local ruler, a shield with three Greek crosses and a hatchet. Now, there was a scraping of bolts as the innkeeper opened up. The man who had been doing the pounding-Prospero could not see him because of the overhang-shouted.

'All right, men! Come on in. A few drinks and then we've got work!'

The pike men, some of them hawking and spitting loudly, clattered in after their leader. Outside Prospero's door, there was a small staircase that led down to a dark pantry full of brackish-smelling empty barrels. The wooden partition of the service window was slid back just a bit, and through it, Prospero saw the stamping grouchy soldiers sloshing beer from stoneware jugs into their tankards. The leader was dumping coins into the cupped hands of the sleepy-eyed innkeeper, who asked what was going on.

'We're going over to the north to burn that town... Bow... what's its name?'

'Bishops Bowes,' said the innkeeper. 'Why are you doing this?'

'We've finally figured out what's going on. Town's full of evil people. Witches. I have an order here from Duke Harald to burn it to the ground. Here, look at it. Not that you have anything to say in this.'

He unrolled a long parchment that trailed lead and yellow wax seals on twisted strings of skin, The signature, a cross with a letter on each point, was so large that it covered a quarter of the page.

'They deserve it, too,' the leader went on. 'You've seen the things. Half the people in Wellfont are afraid to go down into their own cellars. Shadows moving, screams from kettles when there isn't any fire. Well, a little fire'll teach em. A couple of my men are out getting wood for torches. Do you have any pitch?'

'In the basement. I use it on the roof.'

'That's fine. We're going to use it on the roof too.' He laughed, spitting flecks of brown beer on the muddy floor.

Prospero did not wait any longer. He climbed the steep stairs quietly hands on the dark steps in front of him, and soon, he was shaking Roger awake.

'Come on. They're going to burn the village. How far is Bishops Bowes?'

Roger sat up. 'Uh? Hah? Bishops Bowes? Five miles. There's a bridge; that's why it's called Bishops Bowes. 'Bowes' are the arches of a bridge. Wait till I get dressed.'

In a few minutes, the two wizards were opening one of the several side doors of the inn. A cold beaded lamp on a curved hook hung over them, and a few late fall insects clung to the mottled glass. Each man could see how nervous the other looked.

'Well,' said Prospero, whispering, 'have we got everything?'