The Face in the Frost

cordwood, which he then began to dismantle.

'Oh, I see,' said Roger as he helped him. 'We're going to burn the house down. That ought to throw them off.'

When all the wood was cleared away, the two wizards were standing before a black door with a porcelain goose-egg knob. A yellowed piece of cardboard, held to the door with a red thumbtack, said 'Root Cellar.'

'Well, I haven't been in this place for several months,' said Prospero. 'There's no telling what we'll find.' He pushed the door open and a rank sweetish smell of decaying vegetables hit them. In the windowless earth-floored room were shelves into which blackened rutabagas were rotting, Mason jars filled with cloudy green dandelion wine, and bushel baskets of wildly sprouting potatoes. Here and there, the walls were blotched with white and green fungus, and in a corner, cheesy green-spotted toadstools were squat­ting. Prospero calmly began to take the jars off the shelves that lined the short wall opposite the door. Then, he started to lift the shelves from their curlicued iron brackets. Roger was watching him now with delight, for under the dirt and vegetable growth on the wall was the outline of a small arched door.

'Prospero! You never told me about this!'

'I always meant to, but it never seemed all that important. I began to build it quite a few years ago, but I ran into a little trouble. You'll see what I mean. The door, at any rate, is a success. It responds to one of the oldest door spells in the world.'

He placed his hands on the door and whispered a few raspy words that sounded like Arabic-actually, they were corrupt Coptic. The door swung inward with a loud screech, and Prospero, ducking his head, stepped inside and motioned for Roger to follow him. A low-ceilinged dirt tunnel with basalt slabs for steps went spiraling down to a smooth stone floor. At the bottom of the stairs, Roger looked at the long vaulted tunnel before him.

'I knew it,' he said. 'Gothic arches and little carved monster heads. You would.'

'Of course,' said Prospero, picking up a small tin lantern that hung near the stairs. 'Notice the fan vaulting and follow me.'

They walked through a tunnel that sloped gently down and took one sharp right-angle turn. Suddenly, the tunnel opened into a natural cave, a domed, stalactite-dripping room with a dark cold stream flowing through it.

'Here,' said Prospero, 'is our problem. I ran into this and had to stop. There's no stone beyond this point, and the earth behind that wall is very mushy. But, the tunnel that the stream flows through rises four feet above the level of the water.'

Roger was getting nervous again. 'Are we going to crawl through the water? Do you know where the stream goes?'

Prospero smiled. 'I have it on the authority of a talking fish that this stream runs underground for ten miles and then empties into a small lake in the realm of our old friend, King Gorm. You remember him. Well, I think he has a library like the one in Roundcourt, though not so complete. I've never seen it, but it ought to have a copy of the Register, and I want to look up the crest on that bookplate. It's a start, anyway, and there's a possibility that the owner of such an ugly device might have gotten the book back. And, I want to know more about that kindly old fisherman who suddenly volunteers to drown the book for the monk. If the lake isn't stocked with gray ghastlies, we may find something interesting.' He looked at Roger, who was still scowling at him. 'Oh yes-no, we're not going to crawl. Come upstairs.'

Back in the living room, Prospero went to the mantelpiece and took down a small, very accurate-looking ship model. 'This,' he said, 'is what we are going in: the British man-of-war Actaeon, which ran-will run-aground on a sand bar during the siege of Charleston in 1776. Do you know, by the way, that Lord Nelson was hit in the head with a cannon ball at the Battle of the Nile? You pick up the damnedest things from that mirror.'

Roger looked pained. ' I think,' he said, 'that I'll go get a glass of hard cider.'

Upstairs, later, Roger was in Prospero's room helping him pack into a green plush carpetbag such essentials as tarot cards, extra tobacco, and pocket magic books. The magic mirror, after plaguing the two men with questions, was finally beginning to understand what was going on.

'You mean,' it said with a scarcely suppressed giggle, 'that you're going to make yourselves ... smaller?'

'Yes,' said Prospero, blushing. 'What of it?'

The mirror broke into hysterical cackles and began to chant in a falsetto voice:

'Magic words of poof, poof, poof, piffles,
Make me just as small as Sniffles!
Woo, hoo, hoo, hee, hee, hee!'

'I'll wager,' said Prospero, 'that I have the only mirror that wallows in the trash of future centuries.'

Roger was nervously opening and shutting the casement window. 'I'm worried.' he said. 'What do you suppose hell do when he finds we've gone? Will he destroy your house or go down the road and attack the village?'

'I think he will try to find us. He hasn't reached his full strength yet by any means-that is, if the book is as evil as I think it is-and I don't think he'll waste his powers destroying a village or a house out of anger. It has occurred to me that he may not be able to injure my house anyway The hearthstone was laid by Michael Scott, my teacher, and it has many powerful spells on it. He built a good deal of the house, too, and there are still things about it I don't under­stand. Why, there's a cupboard that-oh, the devil! Some other time. I guess I've got everything. Good- by, mirror. I trust you can entertain yourself while we're gone.'

'I should hope so. I think I'll scare the wits out of the cleaning lady when she comes. I have a very nice scream.'

A little later, downstairs, Prospero wrote a note in black crayon and left it on the kitchen table under a bust of the Emperor Pupienus.

Dear Mrs. Durfey,

Will be gone for an indefinite period. Pay no attention to the mirror if it acts up, and in any case, you know where the harp case is. You can slip it over him when he's not looking. Don't forget to water the trailing arbutus and the creeping Charlie. Change the water in the large onyx water clock; the other one takes care of itself. Help yourself to the cheese and anything else. The Cheshire gets dry and crusty if you don't eat it. With luck, I should be back for the big Christmas party. Say hello to His Lordship the Mayor for me,

Prospero

P.S. Unexplained noises are best left unexplained.

He looked around the house sadly. 'I do hate to leave. Oh, well. Are the windows closed,, Roger? Grab your bag and let's get going.'

Soon, the secret door had closed behind the two wizards and they had placed the boat in the black water, where it rocked gently, moored by a pair of wispy cords. The ship was close to the low bank, and a rope ladder hung down from the muddy edge to the port side rail. Roger Bacon and Prospero stood looking doubtfully at the tiny craft.

'Well,' said Roger, ' I don't suppose we can put it off.'

'No,' said Prospero, 'I don't suppose we can.'

He thumbed a small book, which looked like a pocket dictionary, until he found the page he wanted.

'All together now: