The Face in the Frost

Prospero and Roger followed the monk, who solemnly carried the plants, one in each hand, across the little wooden bridge that connected the tower with the mountain. On the other side was a narrow rock shelf and beyond it was a dank-smelling mushroom cave. The procession stopped at the mouth of the cave, and the monk set the plants down. He looked up at the slightly fur­rowed granite wall that rose at least a hundred feet above the shelf; it was not only perpendicular, it actually seemed to lean out a bit at the top. Now, he began to conjure, and his style was odd. He stood with his hand over his face, muttering, as if he were trying to remember the answer to a hard question. As he talked, the plants rose, swaying like charmed snakes. They dug green tendrils into the smooth rock, making cracks where they did not find them. Up they went, wriggling and twisting, until the tops of the two vines were out of sight. The monk waited, tapping his foot. Suddenly the vines tightened, vibrating like plucked strings. They had caught hold of some rocks at the top.

Prospero looked pale. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm not very good at climbing f get dizzy in the lower limbs of apple trees.'

'Well, lucky man that you are, you won't have to climb,' said the monk. 'Hold this.'

He put a pot in each man's hand. The vines, imitating the corkscrew motion that the monk now made with his finger, wrapped themselves tightly around the wizards, several times around. He gave each man his bag and staff.

'And so farewell,' he said. 'Come back and tell me what this was all about.'

The vines began to wrap more and more lengths of green cable around the two somewhat alarmed men, who now started to rise, slowly and solemnly. Prospero thought for a second of what would happen if this eccentric plant grower was one of Melichus' helpers, or, God forbid, Melichus himself. But, he shrugged his shoulders as well as he could with six bands of vine around him and tightened his grip on the carpetbag. There was no way up but this, and up they went, scraping their backs on hard rock. The monk, who was waving his watering can at them, got smaller and smaller in the moonlight.

By the time they got to the top of the mountain wall, each now had a fat green rubber tire around him. But, when they were safe on the broad rock rim, the vines loosened and slithered back down the sheer face. Like someone preparing to go on stage, Prospero stood with his back to the little Valley, squared his shoulders, brushed back his hair, and shook granite dust off his sleeves. Finally, he took a deep breath, let it out, and turned around.

The valley below him, gray in the rising moon, was a wide hilly basin of close-cropped grass, dotted with clover. Dark wrinkled rocks stuck out of folds in the ground. Houses, squatty loaf shapes with thatched mops, ran in even rows over the one long central ridge. He counted them-one... two... hmmm... twenty. Where was the cottage he had stayed in? It must be in the shadows at the back of the valley, up under those four upright slabs of stone. Then, he turned and saw Roger.

Roger stood listening. His arms were raised to fend off something, and he was staring in fear at the pleasant little town, as if it were about to fly at him in a hail of boards and stone. Finally, he lowered his arms, wiped his face, and turned to Prospero. His voice showed that he was breathing heavily.

'You... you know, all the way up here I thought to myself, 'What if we are going to the wrong place? What if we are leaving the field of battle, where we ought to meet Melichus and try to beat him?' I don't think that now. There's something here, all right, and it doesn't like us. We are going to have a hard time getting out of this place.'

Prospero looked around him. 'I don't feel anything. That may be a bad sign, because this fight is mainly between Melichus and me. Maybe I'm not meant to notice anything-yet.'

'Well, come on,' said Roger. 'Let's see what's down here. We may as well give up all hope of sneaking up to the cottage unnoticed. If they can't see two men silhouetted in moonlight on the edge of a cliff, they won't see us if we walk through the middle of their town.'

They stumbled down the long slope of loose and broken stones that led to the edge of the sweet-smelling clover field. The houses in the distance had looked dark from above, and now, they looked just as dark.

'This is strange,' said Prospero. 'It's only eight o'clock at night, and even in a little farming town, there'd be one light. And look! The shutters are closed.'

'Yes. They really have a wild life up here.'

Prospero and Roger walked on, listening for some sound, some barking dog or screeching night walking cat. When they reached the little town, the houses seemed more than dark-they were empty, abandoned, and dead. Blackness lay in the cracks of the broken shutters, and in the spaces between doors and sills. Prospero walked up to one silent cottage and rapped several times on the door. He heard nothing, but as he stood waiting, his hand passed near the keyhole. A cold draft, so cold that it stung his palm, was blowing from inside the house.

He turned and walked back to Roger, who was looking around him with more and more apprehension.

'Roger, this is more than very strange. Didn't that silly monk say there were people up here who threw him out?'

'Yes, he did. But, they may not have been people.'

'Let's go on.'

A little farther ahead-nothing was very far from anything else in this tiny town-was the market place, a square plot overgrown with weedy grass and withered dandelion stems. In the middle was a fountain with a low carved curb. Fountains were common enough in market places, but this one was quite elaborate. The sides of the round basin were carved into several bas-relief panels, and in the center was the figure of a hooded man reading. Unfortunately, the fountain was not running, and the basin was full of dirt. And flowers. Very odd-looking flowers.

Prosper sat on the smooth worn lip of the basin and tweaked a leaf with his finger.

'These are strange flowers. You remember what the monk said, Roger. He said they had flowers up here you wouldn't-'

Roger suddenly leaped forward, grabbed Prospero's hand, and jerked him away, so violently that the two of them fell in a heap on the ground, amid many shouts and what-the-devils, all of them from Prospero. He picked him­self up and stared at Roger, who was himself staring intently at the fountain.

'Now, what in God's name...'

'The flowers. You didn't see the monk's drawings, but I did.'

'The monk? The one down there with the plants? Why-oh! Oh! Good Lord, the plants in the book!'

'Yes. And, let us now have a look at those carved panels, if we dare.' Roger's voice was shaking.

The panels, to neither man's surprise, were familiar: the Witch of Endor, the silhouetted figure in the terrible black window. What the other pictures were they never found out, for as Prospero was straightening up after looking at the first two, he saw a candle burning in a window down the street on the right.

'Look.'

'Yes. I see it and I want to run. But, we must go to it.'

'At this point, anything else would be insane, don't you think?'

Roger agreed, and they slowly started to walk toward the little haloed light. It was shining in the front window of a stone house that was a little larger than the two on either side of it. Its roof was of slate and the shingles looked newly laid. For whatever good it would do them, Prospero and Roger stayed close to the shadowed walls and eaves of the nearer house as they edged down the lane. Finally, they were at the corner of the large house, and they flattened themselves against the rough stuccoed wall. Prospero was the first to reach the window, and, much against his better judgment and the shouting of his instincts, he looked.

What he saw was an old white-maned man, his back to the window. He was seated at a polished table and he was reading a book. A single candle in a pewter stand dribbled wax on the dark varnished surface. Nearby on the table lay a half loaf of bread from which a piece had been roughly torn, and there was a tin cup that might have had wine in it.

In the few seconds that Prospero stood there looking, he felt terribly afraid. He imagined that the faint steam from his breath on the pane would catch the old mans eye. But, the reading figure did not move. Prospero edged back, and Roger squeezed past him to look. A couple of seconds later they were both on all fours, crawling back to the alley between the two houses. They whispered excitedly.

'To think he is up here!' said Roger. 'But, it does make sense, in a way. Do you think he knows we're here?'