Chapter Nineteen

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Chapter Nineteen

As my foot somehow managed to catch on midair, and I went toppling forward like a blue-leafed idiot tree, all of my worst mistakes flashed before my eyes. Not showing up at Hamstring's house in time to save his only living relative. Letting my brother become a wanted criminal to protect his girlfriend. Letting my family get kidnapped while I ran errands for a psychotic narcissist. Failing to take down the laughter farms while I had the chance, leaving Ichabod and Legion free to keep spreading their evil. Even a few that weren't covered by the previous books in the series. No, I won't tell you what they were. Don't you think following me around like this is invading my privacy enough? Let me keep some secrets here!

But as painful as those regrets were, none of them bit as deeply or as painfully as this one. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on me. So, so many mistakes. People who lived to be a hundred didn't have as many screwups under their belts as I had racked up in my fifteen short years of life. And yet, the mistake that had doomed me, Jade, and my entire family hadn't even been my fault. A stupid, freaking dice roll has done us all in. Some small, insane part of me that I usually kept buried at the back of my mind actually wished that I had done something stupid instead of coming up with what should by all rights have been a foolproof plan. At least then I could claim some degree of ownership for the immediate and permanent downward turn my life was about to take instead of leaving it all up to pure chance.

As I fell, I looked across the throne room in desperation, searching for something that could help. There was no chance of that, of course. The dice had spoken, and now my face was fated to meet the floor. But for just a moment, I locked eyes with Yin. It lasted less than a second, but in that time I saw an entire parade of emotions flash across her face. Shock. Horror. Panic. Grim acceptance.

And then, finally, forgiveness.

This isn’t your fault, Rhyen, that last look said.

Stupid, amazing, nonjudgmental best friend, I thought as a tidal wave of emotions rose up inside me. Forgiving me for getting her killed and making me feel even worse. I hate how much I love her!

Then I crashed down onto the cold stone floor, sending a resounding THOOM-OOM-OOM-OOM! echoing through the throne room. I braced myself for the searing pain of Lingua Oris' poison, and the oblivion that waited just beyond it…

“What?” someone exclaimed. “But that’s not fair!”

I’m sorry, Hamstring, I thought. Barely a year since he had lost his family, and now he was going to lose me, my parents…and the girl he loved. This was going to hit him harder than…

Wait.

That hadn’t been Hamstring’s voice!

“Oh, very well,” the voice agreed grumpily. Then, louder, it said, “As you hit the floor, your hammer goes flying out of your hands.”

I blinked, then raised my head in surprise as Splartacus jumped out of my hand, seemingly of her own accord.

“As it soars across the room, the bindle you have tied to it comes undone.”

I stared in disbelief as that exact thing happened. The handkerchief of holding that I carried the entire party's inventory in untied itself as if invisible fingers had just unraveled the knot. What was going on? Who was doing…

I lowered my eyes to the figure standing at the other end of the throne room.

Lingua Oris.

“As the bindle falls open,” he said, narrating as if there weren't a thing out of place in the world, “all of its contents come tumbling out at once.”

“What the hell?” Hamstring exclaimed just as all of our stuff spilled out of the interdimensional hobo sack like a weaponized junk drawer.

“And one by one, every item in your possession…” Lingua Oris paused, looking exasperatedly at something I couldn’t see. “Do I really have to do this? Fine! Every item in your possession goes off as it strikes the ground at my feet!”

A small brown envelope hit the ground first, exploding into a cloud of white powder. The lick yelped, and frantically began scratching at himself.

“Curses!” he whined, digging his long, black nails into every corner of his leathery body they could reach. “It feels like the seven headed fleas of Canem Puppis!”

The sound of glass smashing against stone rang through the throne room, and a fire sprang up beneath the lick. Was that…

“The flaming seltzer!” Yin cried out.

I turned my head so fast I nearly unscrewed my neck. Yin was still on her knees, tied up by her own Hampering Hankies and looking about an inch from death, but her eyes were open.

“Hoo, hoo, hot, hot, hot!” Lingua Oris cried out, hopping on one foot and then the other as he desperately tried to escape. But before he could reach the edge of the flames—

Crack!

Thbbbt!

FOOOOOOM!

The bottled fart shattered against the floor, turning the small circle of flames into a roaring pillar of fire, while Lingua Oris screamed from the very center of it.

The firestorm only lasted a moment, but it left the lick flailing and thrashing, trying to put out his flaming robes with one hand and scratch with the other.

Ba-KAAAAAA!

The bike horn came next, its bulb striking the floor and releasing a glorious honk. The zukkokeru spell it contained, fueled by animagic and the power of friendship, slammed into Lingua Oris and forced his knees to lock and his arms to pin themselves to his sides. Then, as stiff as the corpse he so closely resembled, he toppled over backwards—

Just in time for all three spiked juggling pins to bounce off of his forehead one at a time with a loud and satisfying BONK-BONK-BONK!

“I don’t know what hurts more,” the lick muttered. “My CP or my dignity.”

Five bright flashes exploded around him as the flashbang juggling balls went off.

“What in the name of chocolate dipped coleslaw,” I whispered, eyes wide, “is going on here?”

Lying on his back, Lingua Oris stared up at the ceiling in resigned apathy—and then his eyes widened. I followed his gaze, and looked up to see the last piece of our inventory plummeting down towards him like an asteroid that had spotted a dinosaur.

“Oh, for the love of—” he managed to say before the whipped cream and dynamite pie splatted him in the face, detonating in a burst of fire and dairy like a cow that had held in a fart for too long. I threw my arm up to protect my face, and when the light faded my entire body was coated in sugary cream…

And Lingua Oris was lying in the middle of the throne room without a head.

I stared at the corpse, my head spinning, until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “What in the name of Eggs Benedict Cumberbatch was—”

I was cut off when a bright red aluminum can landed right in front of me with a clink, rolling across the floor until it bumped against my chin. It was one of the cherry sodas from my bindle! I looked at it, then at Hamstring. He looked just as shocked by what had just happened as I was, but he still managed to give me a weak nod. That was all the encouragement I needed, so I grabbed the can, popped the top, and chugged the entire sweet, fruity drink in one gulp.

“BUUURRRRP!” came the inevitable nose-burning backlash, but I still sighed in relief when a wave of healing washed over me to the tune of about ten Color Points—half a second before the lick’s poison did its best to melt me from the inside out. I couldn’t help but moan and curl up from the pain, but given that I now had ten CP good to go, at least it wasn’t fatal.

The pain faded soon, and with a groan I forced myself back to my knees.

“So,” Hamstring said hesitantly, “does that mean we win?”

“Yes,” said Lingua Oris, “you win.”

“Sonofabiscuit!” I spat as the headless lick sat up and folded his arms petulantly. I raised Splartacus, and—

“Oh, don’t be overdramatic,” Lingua Oris said in Brother Fossilicious’ voice. He turned towards me, and even though he didn’t have a head, I could still somehow clearly read the disdainful look he was giving me. “Or are you going to start complaining about plot holes again?”

I stared at him and blinked slowly. “Whaaaa…”

“Whatever,” he said brusquely, and waved his hands in mock celebration. “You’ve defeated the lick and saved the kingdom! Hooray! The townspeople are at this moment holding a celebratory feast as they unveil the statues they’ve carved depicting the three brave heroes who freed them from Lingua Oris’ reign of terror. In fact, they realized that they never had a princess to be kidnapped, and decided to instate one immediately! And it’s all because of you three fearless, wonderful, amazing, INCREDIBLE, FLAWLESS—”

“Great, so can we go now?” Yin asked.

“You punch yourself in the face and take—”

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Hamstring and I yelled together.

Even without a head, I could see the lick rolling his eyes. “Fine, yes, whatever. Off you go!”

Before I could reply, a blinding light appeared in the air above his…where his head should have been…and for the second time that day, I felt the strange sensation of being sucked up by a gigantic cosmic vacuum cleaner.

“Can’t you conjure up a freaking elevator or something?” Hamstring yelled as we were all yanked up into the light.

Luckily, the trip back out of the book was much less painful than the journey in, and a few seconds later I found myself back in the Hall of Reverie. My eyes felt dry and a little sore, the way they did whenever I had one of my twelve hour staring contests with McGus. I blinked the moisture back into them and looked around, my neck popping as I did so. Ethan was sitting on the opposite side of the table from me, looking like he had just woken up from a really uncomfortable nap, and…

I froze.

Then I launched myself across the table at him.

“What’s my name?” I demanded, grabbing him by his shirt and shaking him.

“Huh?” he exclaimed. “What the hell are you—”

I shook him even harder. “WHAT’S MY NAAAAAME?”

I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulders and try to pull me off of him. “Henry, stop it! Let him go!”

I released him, letting him fall back onto the floor, and spun around to wrap Jade—not Yin, Jade!—in a big ol’ hug.

“You said my name!” I yelled, squeezing her until she grunted in pain. “Also, you’re not dead. But more importantly, you said my name!”

“Yes, I said your name! Now stop trying to break my spine!”

“Not until you say it ten more times! No, twenty times!”

Nearby, somebody cleared his throat, and I turned to see Fatty standing nearby with Opisthia perched on his arm. The situation came crashing down on me again—my family, Ichabod, the Trials, the hammer—crushing that little spark of happiness like a daisy beneath Brother Humdinger’s king sized butt.

“Congratulations on completing the second Trial, Rider of Henries!” the puppet declared. “Now, only one test stands between you and claiming your right to wield the First Hunter’s Hammer!”

I let go of Jade and went to stand in front of him, hands clasped behind my back.

“Sir, with all due respect,” I said, “that sucked royal butt.”

Opisthia may not have been able to move his face besides opening and closing his mouth, but I swear he smirked at that.

“Yes,” he admitted, “that has always been my least favorite of the Trials as well.”

“Plot holes!” Brother Fossilicious spat, still sitting behind the gigantic open BnB rulebook. “Bah! These children wouldn’t know a good narrative if you rolled all of Shakespeare’s greatest works up into a club and beat them over the head with it!”

“Actually,” Ethan said, walking around the table to stand next to him, “I can pinpoint exactly where your campaign went wrong.”

Brother Fossilicious glared down his nose at him. “Hmph! Oh, really? Well then, go ahead and show me!”

Reaching out, Ethan pointed at something in the book. “Look right here, really closely.”

Brother Fossilicious leaned in, narrowing his eyes—and Ethan grabbed the book and slammed it shut on his stupid wrinkly head.

“IT WENT WRONG WHEN YOU TRIED TO MURDER MY GIRLFRIEND!” he yelled, his face turning almost as red as Ichabod’s hair.

My cheeks turned blue, and I had to turn away before Ethan could see the look I was giving him. Can you blame me? Ethan was HOT when he beat up the elderly!

“Nnnngh!” Brother Fossilicious whined, rubbing his temples. He turned to glare at Opisthia. “Is this the thanks I get for grueling away behind a desk, writing an elaborate and mystifying tale of wonder? To be mocked by a gaggle of schoolchildren, and then have control yanked away from me at the last second by a sock puppet?”

I blinked. “Wait, what was that last part?”

Opisthia turned to me. “Sometimes the most important part of your journey isn’t the destination, but how you got there.”

“What does that—”

“It means,” Brother Fossilicious snapped, gathering up his book and other game supplies, “that his heart is as soft as the cotton in his head. When you tried to sacrifice yourself to save your friend, he got all emotional and decided to drop a bag of magic weapons on me!”

Opisthia tilted his head in what was as close to a shrugging motion as he could probably make. “As the head of the Order of Zanni, it was my decision to make.”

“Hmph!” the crusty old klaon hmphed, storming out of the Hall of Reverie. “And again, to reiterate, hmph!”

Once we were alone, I turned to face Opisthia again. “So we only survived because…”

“You passed the Trial, and that is all that you need to be concerned with,” he interrupted me. “As the creator and overseer of these Trials, it is up to me to decide what qualities make someone worthy of passing them. In any case, it is getting late. You and your friends should return home and rest for the third Trial. I am not exaggerating when I say that it will be more difficult than the previous two combined, and this time I will not be able to save you if things take a dark turn.”

I nodded and turned to leave. Ethan patted my shoulder, and I gave him a small, tired smile. I was exhausted. I have no idea how that whole thing worked—were we really there inside the book, or were our physical bodies out here in Jah Beryge the entire time?—but one way or another, I was ready to fall into bed and sleep for a week.

I paused.

My bed…in that empty house.

“Are you okay, Henry?” Jade whispered.

“I don’t…” I said slowly.

“Is something wrong?” Opisthia asked.

I turned to face him again, suddenly feeling as small, weak, and vulnerable as a toddler.

“Would it be all right,” I asked softly, “if we stayed here for tonight?”

NEXT CHAPTER 11/19/25