The Face in the Frost

At Bishops Bowes, the first thing Prospero saw was Roger sitting on a keg of onions in the middle of the empty street. He was smoking and staring placidly around at empty windows.

'They're all gone,' he said. 'They were gone when I got here. I suppose the news got to them and they fled to some castle. How did your bridge go?'

'I tell you about it later,' said Prospero, who was still picking burrs out of his robe. 'What are we going to do now?'

'Well, I've looked around the town. There are two horses left in the stable here. I suggest that we take them and leave some money. It's a long way to the mountains, and you can feel that something is gathering. I felt it all the way up here from the bridge.'

'But, I can't ride a horse!' said Prospero. 'You know that. I was frightened of ponies when I was a child. And, it won't do you any good to give me riding lessons, I'm still scared.'

'Fine figure of a wizard' said Roger, chuckling, 'Ah, me. You'll never guess what I'm going to do. Or try to do. Come on.'

Roger led the way out of the little town to a thickly planted and weedy garden. The black mucky soil sprouted string beans in pale green clusters-their pods felt sticky and furry to Prospero as he bent down to look at them-the delicate ferny tops of carrots, big clumpish cabbages, and tomato vines on leaning crutches. Roger passed these by. He was looking for something else.

Prospero suddenly knew what was going on. 'Oh, good heavens! Great elephantine, cloudy, adamant heavens full of thunder stones! Roger! You can't be serious. Are you?'

Roger was looking around and drumming his forefinger against his teeth. 'If I were serious, I would never have become a wizard, would I? The fact that it's been done before doesn't stop it from happening again. And, we've got to get there somehow.'

'There are no pumpkins in this garden,' said Prospero. 'Anyone can see that.' He reached up a vine and broke off a tomato. The slippery red flesh was already getting loose and wrinkly. 'Here. Work on this.'

'Thanks,' said Roger sourly. 'We'll see. And, wouldn't you be surprised.'

'I would,' said Prospero. 'And, I'm watching. What kind of spell are you going to use?'

'Something appropriately silly,' said Roger. 'Hum. Те tum. Oh, tum te tum. 'Awe bleteth after lamb, Ihuth after calve cu'... ah!'

He put the tomato down in the middle of a patch of spear-bladed weeds. Touching it with his wand, he recited calmly:

 'Higgeldy-piggeldy
Saint Athanasius
Riffled through volumes
In unseemly haste;


'Trying to find out if
(Hagiographically)
John of Jerusalem
Liked almond paste.'

At first, the tomato just wobbled foolishly on its platform of weeds. Then, it swelled and spun into a reddish cloud of gaseous bromine-deadly if inhaled-which gradually took the shape of a carriage. Unfortunately, it was the kind of carriage you would expect from an overripe tomato: a large sagging purse of red leather on prickly green wheels. As Prospero and Roger watched disgustedly, the wet jowly bag collapsed, oozing ketchup from many slurping cracks.

'Care for a bean?' said Prospero.

'You be quiet. Just be quiet. Look, there's more to this garden. Come on.'

They walked farther in, stepping over rows of parsnips and cauliflow­ers. Vines, finally, and on them, knobbly green-streaked yellow squashes When Roger picked one up, he noticed that it was rotten black under­neath: Yellow strings of pulp and seeds hung from the caved-tn belly of the plant. One after another he turned them up, and they were all like that. He was about to give up when he saw a little streak of orange under an intri­cately knotted pile of vines. This squash was solid; he thubbed his staff against its goose-pimpled sides.

'This will do nicely. All right, stand back.'

 'Higgeldy-piggeldy
John Cantacuzene
Swaddled in Byzantine
Pearl-seeded robes

'Put out the eyes of his
Iconophanical
Prelate, for piercing his
Priestly ear lobes.'

The squash flew into a saffron-powder rage, and when the dust settled, there was a square black Amish- style box carnage. It smelled faintly of kerosene, the leather-strap springs were cracked, but it looked serviceable. On the doors and ceiling, for some reason, were dusky paintings of river landscapes, and the black horsehair-filled upholstery had silver ashtrays set into its tufted armrests. Two bull's-eye oil lamps burned on the front.

'There!' said Roger. 'Lets get those horses.'

The two wizards went north. For days, they rode across flat tableland where nothing, but long yellowed grass and dusty goldenrod grew. In the distance, you might see a tree or one of those tall watchtowers that the Northerners built. Those towers were not like anything seen in the south; Round, narrow, and with pointed stone roofs, they looked like huge candles,-usually they had three floors, connected by ladders, that could be pulled up through holes in case of attack. You could not hold out for long in them if you were besieged, but a fire could be lit on the upper story and the smoke could be seen for miles. Once Prospero, and Roger found one of these towers planted next to the road on which they were traveling. It was night and there were soldiers outside, sitting around a peat fire. They were not laughing, drinking, or telling stories. Instead, they sat grimly hunched over, poking the fire with their spears and wearing their acorn helmets. Long narrow nose pieces, fire-shadowed, made their faces look evil. They must have heard the carriage rattling along miles away, but none of them looked up as it rolled past, spitting gravel. They were waiting for something else.

The few scattered towns of the North were usually hidden under the lee of a low hill; or you might find houses scattered through the trees of a little grove, or grouped at the foot of a landscaped and terraced hill of farmed fields. On top, there was always a castle without battlements, a long oval wall of odd-shaped heaped stones, pierced by cruciform loopholes. The carriage passed several of these dumpy forts, but never came close to any of them, Prospero, using his brassbound telescope, could see that the fields were untended, and that the drawbridges were up.

In the roadside towns, the wizards picked up stories and rumors. One man told how frost formed on the windows at night, though it was only the middle of September. There were no scrolls or intricate fern leaves, no branching overlaid star clusters; instead, people saw seasick wavy lines, disturbing maps that melted into each other and always seemed on the verge of some recognizeable, but fearful shape. At dawn, the frost melted, always in the same way: At first, two black eye holes formed, and then, a long steam-lipped mouth that spread and ate up the wandering white picture. In some towns, people talked of clouds that formed long opening mouths. One man in the town of Edgebrake sat up all night, staring at a little smiling cookie jar made in the shape of a fat monk; it stood