Page 32 of Search for the Lost

“Stop it!” Crispin snapped. “Earthian culture is much richer than you assume, and being a snob isn’t flattering. I bet Mother would be appalled at your rudeness.”

Well, that shut Aspin up. Because Leo was grateful for the intervention, he didn’t mention that Aspin sort of had a point about modern movies. Or that their mother hadn’t exactly seemed like a stickler for good manners toward humans.

“What happened to the girl?” Crispin asked. He gave Leo’s hand a squeeze, which was nice even if Crispin’s hand felt like ice. “Did she make it to the castle? Did she find the white horses?”

Leo wished very much that he could answer those questions. But the truth was that when his mother read him the story, he always fell asleep while the girl was crossing the Wretched Wasteland. He’d try to stay awake, but his mother’s voice was soothing and his bed so comfy, and somewhere in this part of the book there was a long digression about the bad guy’s evil family history, complete with a really long list of names containing way too many random apostrophes. Leo’s eyelids would grow too heavy to keep open, and the next thing he knew it was morning and he still didn’t know whether the hero had successfully completed her quest. It didn’t seem like a good idea to tell this to Crispin and Aspin, however.

So Leo made something up.

“Of course she made it to the castle. Because just when she was about to give up, she got help. Her feet were tired, her stomach was empty, her bones were chilled. But she kept on keeping on, and then….” Uh-oh. And then what? Leo thought frantically, trying to come up with a way to help that poor, brave girl, but his mind remained as blank as the landscape.

Fine, he’d resort to plagiarism. He recalled one of his favorite childhood movies and a creature that stepped in to save the day.

“A dragon,” Leo said with as much confidence as he could muster. “A dragon showed up and led her where she needed to go.” There. That sounded good, didn’t it?

Maybe Crispin thought so; he gave Leo’s hand another squeeze. “And how did she and the dragon rescue the horses?”

Leo gave an inward wince and mentally prodded himself to come up with something good. He was still rejecting various scenarios when Aspin made a small sound and came to an abrupt halt.

In a much less assertive tone than normal—in fact, his quavering voice could arguably be classified as a squeak—Aspin asked, “What is that?” And he pointed up at the sky.

11

Crispin

Of course he expected it to be a dragon.

Leo’s story, then Aspin’s well-timed gasp and point… there had to be a dragon. Right?

But it wasn’t a dragon at all, though at first Crispin thought he saw the flash of scales and heard the roar of a dragon’s call. Of course, he was as cold as a polar boar on Fremswealth, so he might have hallucinated it.

But the flash resolved into a series of flickers, reflecting off the hooves and horns of the approaching horses that, to Crispin’s surprise, sported wings. Great alabaster white wings that gleamed with hidden hints of rainbows. And the roar resolved into the beating of said wings, as the herd—flock?—of flying horses descended to settle into the snowy grass before them.

“Who dares enter the territory of King Reginald Thorwald Slinky Feathersword the Fourth—may he rest in peace—without permission?” The voice came from atop the nearest horse, but Crispin couldn’t make out the speaker through the prismatic swirls of snow.

Crispin stepped forward and drew himself up, trying not to shiver too noticeably. “I am Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin, son of Cerillia Ailedrin Moss’caladin, mother of Fae, and this is my partner, Leopold Lane, and my brother, Aspin.”

Aspin cleared his throat. “Aspin Vellain Moss’caladin.”

Crispin rolled his eyes.

“You don’t look much like a fae.” The voice sounded equal parts suspicious and mocking. “That’s quite a paunch for one of the fair people.”

Crispin sighed. I told Leo to lay off the crumpets a bit. “I’m… not myself at the moment.” At that very instant, the awe of seeing the beautiful flying creatures wore off, and he remembered that he was really cold. Deathly cold. His whole body shuddered, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to find icicles growing from his nose and earlobes. “Please… is there somewhere… warm nearby that we can go?”

In response, the rider leapt down—an orange blur—onto the snowy ground in front of them and touched the point of his sword at Crispin’s, well, Leo’s throat.

Leo laughed out loud. “Oh my god, it’s Puss in Boots!”

Crispin, staring down the blade of the sword, didn’t find it funny at all. “What?” he gurgled, trying to keep his throat from becoming impaled on the bright steel.

The rider was no more than a meter tall with fur aggressively striped in orange and white. His outlandish attire included a big floppy hat with a feather, a modest leather codpiece, and a belted sword sheath that was almost as long as he was tall.

His blade drew a prick of blood, which rolled down Crispin’s neck and almost immediately froze.

Aspin drew his own sword. “I’ll take care of this miscreant. No one messes with the King of the Fae. Especially not when he’s my brother!” He advanced valiantly on the feline warrior.

The cat-man whipped something off of his belt and flung it at Aspin. The bolo struck him in the forehead, and his eyes rolled back in his head before he collapsed dramatically onto the snow-dusted ground.