In Another Kingdom Ep. 7, the narrator confronts Emperor Anastasius’ murder at his funeral, where Sir Littleman orders the execution of Favian and his family—until a last-second challenge in Queen Elinda’s name halts it, sparking a deadly trial by combat. Armed with a magical sword but ill-prepared, the narrator faces Sir Littleman atop a warhorse, realizing too late the duel is to the death as the crowd watches, the fate of justice hanging on a single clash. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
Okay, let's do the next part.
You've been sleeping badly.
Only at night in bed.
I doze when I'm up walking around.
What's up?
Just thinking.
What if we tell the world the truth and the world won't listen?
Well, that's how this works, Austin.
You can save the world, but the world is never saved.
Gee, now I'm not going to sleep well either.
All right.
Since we're both awake, let's get to work.
After a night with the Yeti, Maud and I flew the winged stallion to Aona, where at last we found the armies of the Emperor.
And the Emperor's three knights addressed the crowd and told them.
Yeah.
The Emperor was dead.
Another Kingdom.
The final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 7.
The sound of mourning rose from the vast army like the sound of a roaring wind.
Individual cries, wild shrieks of grief, pierced the general clamor.
No, really, Maude.
What did he just say?
I looked at her.
She was facing away from me.
Still, she did not answer.
I heard her make a noise, a terrible noise, like a tomb door groaning open.
Maud?
I climbed forward a little on the rocks until I could see her profile.
Only then, in that moment, did the situation become real to me.
Because Maud was weeping too.
Crystal tears streamed out of her woman's eyes, dripping down her fur to fall and stain the rocks she clung to with her squirrel-like claws.
No.
No.
No, Maud.
This can't be happening, right?
There's got to be some kind of mistake.
She turned her head and gazed at me with an expression of mingled despair and scorn.
A look that told me both that her heart was broken and that I was the biggest fool she'd ever met in her life.
Maud!
The Emperor can't be dead.
Can he?
He's the whole reason we came here.
He's the only one who can defeat Curtin's armies.
The only one who can restore the queen to her throne.
He's the whole point and purpose of everything, everything that's happened.
He can't be dead.
It makes no sense.
Still weeping, she sneered at me and turned back to the funeral.
And I turned back.
The centaurs and the gnomes, the ogres and the elves and fawns and the men too had all bowed their heads and all were grieving.
The sounds of their laments flooded over me relentlessly.
In that flood, I felt something being washed away inside me.
Something I hadn't even realized was there until that moment.
My faith, my inner conviction that everything would eventually turn out all right.
I mean, all this time, fighting, surviving, lost, alone, desperately striving, all this time, I had been to myself like the hero of a story.
It was a story about finding the emperor, alerting the emperor, bringing the emperor and his armies into the fight for the throne of Galeana.
I never knew whether I would survive at any given moment, but deep down, I had believed that, in the end, the story would tell itself the way it was supposed to, would work its way through to the most fulfilling conclusion, the way stories do.
I hadn't even known I held that conviction until now, when it left me.
But suddenly I was aware it was gone.
And without it, I was utterly gray and empty inside.
Hopeless.
There was no emperor.
The emperor was dead.
All at once, the story was over.
There was not going to be, there could not be, a happy ending.
My eyes filled.
The scene blurred.
I blinked as the out-of-focus centaurs gave a great heave of their muscular arms and lifted the coffin high into the air above their heads.
The sound of mourning grew louder and more awful.
I peeked around the edge of the rocks at the army.
I saw the array of rough-faced fighting men and their sturdy wives and their vital children, all of them sobbing out their heartbreak without restraint.
Sir Littleman lifted the hand that had been pointing down at the coffin.
He held it up, asking for silence.
But there was no silence, only quieter sobs.
The night's movie star face was grim, and the faces of the knights on either side of him, the angel face and the hammer face, seemed more than grim, seemed dark with fury.
Sir Littleman nodded at the centaurs below him.
They lowered the coffin again and began to carry it in a slow march toward an open cave behind the pavilions at the edge of the cliffs.
I now noticed an ogre standing there at the cave entrance.
He had a gigantic drum strapped over his gigantic shoulder.
He banged the drum with his huge ogre club.
The slow, hollow beat was added to the general lamentation.
I watched, everyone watched, as the centaurs carried the coffin to the cave mouth and then into the cave where they disappeared from sight in the shadows.
The drum went on beating.
The crowd went on weeping, and a small wedge of cowled figures stood chanting outside one of the pavilions.
Priests, I guessed, singing a dirge.
I could not deny it to myself anymore, hard as I tried.
This was all real.
It was all really happening.
They were burying the Emperor Anastasius.
My whole quest, my whole adventure, my whole story had been useless.
Meaningless.
A few moments later, the centaurs emerged again, empty-handed.
The ogre continued beating his drum.
The priests continued their wordless threnody.
Two more centaurs moved to join the others and all four lifted a huge slab of rock from where it lay on the edge of the cliff.
With a great effort, they set the slab in position and sealed the cave's entrance to transform it into a tomb for the emperor.
And that was it.
That was the end of the funeral.
The chanting stopped.
The weeping quieted.
The drum fell silent.
A moment passed.
Then Sir Littleman's voice boomed out to the crowd again.
And now we must finish the grim business.
Nothing can heal our hearts but time.
But even as we grieve, we must have justice.
A new noise arose from the army.
Like a wave starting with those nearest to me and moving toward the rear as Sir Littleman's words were passed among them.
A growl of anger sounded, pierced by harsh shouts.
Justice!
We are just!
I do not need to tell you what happened to our emperor was not a tragedy, but a crime.
Just as we completed the conquest of the Eleven Lands, just as we finished driving the savage armies into the sea, just as we began to build the crystal city which the Emperor promised us, and just as we prepared to begin the new lives of peace and freedom, wisdom and love, which he told us would be our reward for following him.
Just then, our great leader was struck down by a hand empowered by treachery and a heart befouled with corruption and greed.
Just as he was about to lead us into paradise, the emperor's life was ended by murder.
Justice!
Justice!
And over those cries, Sir Littleman's mighty voice roared out, Bring the guilty forth!
There was a tumult from within another of the pavilions.
A moment later, three people, a man, a woman, and a little boy, were shoved through the flaps into the open air.
They were followed at once by two enormous ogre guards, each with his single eye glaring.
The male prisoner was in his late 30s.
He was dressed in a ragged brown robe, his beard unkempt, his forehead bruised, his wrists and ankles shackled.
The woman's robe was dirty white.
She was shackled too, and her hair was in tangles.
Her sweet round face was grimy with tears.
The boy.
The boy was so pitiful it was hard to look at him.
Such a little guy.
No more than four or five years old, with no clear idea of what was happening to him or why.
His little wrists were tied in front of him with a small cord.
His face was contorted with confusion and terror as he bawled miserably for his mother, who could not move her chained arms to comfort him.
Fabian, brother to Anastasius, you once earned glory among us by leading the forces that put down the Wizard Curtain's rebellion.
But your envy of your brother and your lust for power led you to poison our great leader just as his triumph was to become complete.
For that, you and your family must die the death.
I wasn't sure what to make of the vast crowd's answer.
There were individual shouts from among them.
Let the sentence be carried out.
But overall, I thought their reaction was muted and uncertain.
Nonetheless, at another gesture from Sir Littleman, the crowd at the base of the stage stepped back and made a clearing.
Quickly, the centaurs and their ogre helpers brought three large poles to the open place.
The ogres, lifting the stakes over their heads, drove them down into the earth with a single mighty stroke.
The centaurs, meanwhile, brought armloads of wood to lay around the stakes as kindling.
With mind-boggling rapidity, they built a place of execution.
The centaurs lit torches and held them high, ready to set the blaze.
They were standing right beneath me, and I could feel the heat of the flames wash over me among the rocks where I hid.
The reality of the thing struck me like a blow.
They were going to burn these three, this man, this woman, this child.
Burn them.
The little boy let out a high scream of inconsolable terror.
Mommy, I don't want the fire.
I don't want the fire, mommy.
His mother cried out to him, It will be all right, my darling.
But the ogre held her back so she couldn't reach him, and she wept uncontrollably in the knowledge of what was about to take place.
The man, Favian, the emperor's brother, managed to stagger forward in his chains.
He fell to his knees, his ravaged face turned upward toward the three knights.
Sir Littleman, Sir Good Child, Sir Hammer, he cried to them in a breaking voice, I am innocent.
You know I am.
But if you need my sacrifice to keep the peace among the people, let me burn and join my brother in the palaces of the dead.
But my wife, Beltan, has done nothing.
My child, Rory, is only five years old.
What harm could he be guilty of?
Spare them.
In the name of Anastasius, who loved you, Littleman.
Good child.
Hammer.
Spare my wife and child.
These words, the prisoner's words, seemed to be passed on among the vast army, mouth to ear.
Their general murmuring quieted.
One voice shouted, Burn them all!
But only one.
The rest, I think, were waiting for Sir Littleman's verdict before they decided what to think.
The ever-so-handsome knight turned and bent for a moment to consult with the small angel-faced knight and the knight with the hammery head standing beside him.
He then straightened and announced, It is a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless, that the family of an executed prince will be a threat to the future peace of the empire.
This cannot be allowed.
They all must die.
This was greeted by a long, solemn murmur from the crowd.
I couldn't tell the meaning of it.
Some, I thought, agreed with the decision.
Some seemed unconvinced.
But Sir Littleman, apparently unmoved, turned to the ogre guards and nodded down at them.
Loudly and clearly, he pronounced the words, Put them to the flame.
Until that moment, I had been staring, gaping agog, at the drama, my heart filled with pity and with horror.
I didn't know what to think of any of it.
These were Anastasius' people, the followers of the great emperor, who was known throughout the Eleven Lands as a mighty warrior for all that was good.
And yet, there was no denying it.
They were about to carry out what seemed to me an atrocity.
On instinct, I turned to Maud for her reaction, and I was shocked to find that her weeping had ceased, and she was staring right at me, her hard eyes dry.
Well?
What?
Well, what?
Well, are you just going to stand there and let them burn an innocent child to death?
What are you?
Startled by the words, I straightened so quickly my back hit the side of one boulder.
Me?
What the hell am I supposed to do?
Well, something!
Anything!
Stop them!
Queen Elinda's Choice00:07:30
You're Elinda's knight!
You are her chosen hero!
Do you think she would have stood by and let this happen in her fiancé's name?
Do you think she would see a child burned in the name of the Emperor Anastasius?
My mouth fell open.
All at once, my horror at the events unfolding before me was transformed into, well, into horror at the idea that I was supposed to do something about it.
There was an entire army out there.
Elinda's knight or no, I was only one man.
What could I do?
But when I turned back to the scene before us, when I saw one of the ogre guards grab Favian and his wife by their arms, one arm each in each of his massive hairy hands, when I saw the other ogre pick up the crying child in order to carry him to the stake where he'd be tied along with his parents, when I heard the boy screaming, Mommy, mommy, I don't want to!
I don't want to!
When I saw the shackled woman reach for him, shrieking, My boy, have mercy!
For the love of God, have mercy on my boy!
I realized Maude was right.
I actually couldn't just stand by and let this happen.
I actually did have to do something.
Hold on!
I shouted before I could stop myself, before I could think of a better plan or think of any plan at all.
Even as my inner voice was shouting at me, what the hell do you think you're doing, you asshole?
I was at the same time leaping from the rocks to land on a slope of raised ground above the shocked crowd and beneath the glares of the three noble knights on the stage.
Stop right there, I shouted in my best imitation of a hero, which was not all that great, I'm sorry to tell you, especially since I slid and stumbled on the slope before I got my footing.
Only then did it occur to me to add, Stop!
In the name of Queen Elinda.
No one was more surprised than I was when they all actually stopped what they were doing.
The ogre dragging Favian and his wife toward the pyre stopped, and so did the ogre with the shrieking child squirming in his arms.
The centaurs and fawns and gnomes all turned to stare at me, and even the vast army went utterly silent.
In the gasps between the child's exhausted sobs, the wicker of the flames from the torches was loud in the air, and the whisper of the ocean waves way, way down at the bottom of the high cliffs could be heard even where I was standing.
Who are you?
How dare you stand between these criminals and justice?
I opened my mouth to respond.
But what was I supposed to say?
It was a good question.
Who was I?
What right did I have to interfere?
You're Queen Elinda's knight!
Maude whispered urgently from where she clung to the rocks behind my head.
You're her chosen hero!
Right, exactly.
I am Queen Elinda's knight.
I'm her chosen hero.
I wanted as many people to hear me as possible, in case there were some Queen Elinda fans in the crowd who might come to my defense.
She would have been their empress!
I hadn't thought of that.
It was a good point.
If Anastasius hadn't died, he would have married her and she would have been your empress.
I turned to address the vast crowd head-on.
You know her.
Even if her husband had been murdered, would she have burned an innocent child?
My heart leapt up with hope as a murmur of support passed over the seemingly endless crowd.
I could hear voices nearby.
He's right.
She would never have done it.
It can't be imagined.
She was the gentlest of ladies and the most righteous queen.
I loved Queen Elinda.
Beneath all that, I heard Maud whisper again.
The emperor called her his wisdom.
I glanced at her.
He did?
That's really sweet.
Use it, you jackass!
Oh, oh, right.
The emperor called the queen his wisdom.
That's true.
He always did.
I faced the knights on their stage, but spoke as loudly as I could, so as many people as possible would hear me.
If the emperor's wisdom would not have done this deed, then how can you permit it in the emperor's name?
Even as I said these words, I was surprised to realize.
This was actually a pretty good argument.
Which made me wonder, if Littleman, Goodchild, and Hammer were Anastasius' most trusted knights, why were they looking to do this terrible thing in the first place?
Well, there was no time to figure that out now.
The crowd was growing restive.
Someone dared to shout out loudly, It's true!
The Emperor's wisdom would not have allowed this to happen.
And someone else added, Whether it was expedient or not, whether it was necessary for future peace or not, she would not have allowed it.
Other lower voices seemed to mutter their assent.
I saw Sir Littleman scan the vast array of faces before him from under lowered brows.
He glanced sternly to his right, down at the angelic Sir Goodchild.
Sir Goodchild glanced across him in turn at the hammer-headed Sir Hammer.
Then all three looked at me.
Sir Goodchild spoke.
His voice rang like wind chimes.
How do we know you are who you say you are?
How do we know you are Queen Elinda's chosen knight?
My mouth went dry.
Another good question.
How could I prove it?
Your sword, you fool!
Your armor!
Of course.
I remembered how the soldiers of King Cambitis and Vagos of Menaria had stopped in the process of cutting me to pieces when they saw I carried the sword and wore the magic armor of the queen.
It was her gift to her hero.
My hand began to reach to the place where my invisible scabbard was, but I hesitated.
Would the sword be there?
Hadn't I lost it when the great Yeti sent me flying?
Well, I had to try.
I reached and, yay magic, the sword was suddenly in my hand.
The armor flowed out of my skin and covered me.
The crowd gave a very gratifying gasp of surprise and wonderment as I stood before them, clothed in flowing metal and armed with the gleaming blade.
They could all see now.
I was who I said I was, a knight and the queen's chosen.
All three of the knights on the stage above me drew a deep breath.
All three nodded.
With a thrill, I thought, I've done it.
I've stopped them.
Sir Knight, I see you are who you say you are.
Well and good.
He turned to the people and raised his voice again.
We know that the Aona of Anastasius was to be a land of perfect justice.
We know that in such a land, the outcome of contested questions will always be what it is meant to be.
Therefore, to decide this dispute, this knight and I will meet in a joust on the field of battle.
And who survives this trial by combat shall give the final verdict on the murderer Favian and his clan?
I was still trying to parse the sense and logic of all that verbiage when the crowd let out a cheer so loud it drowned out every thought.
Jousting on the Field00:07:50
The ogre who had been holding the squirming crying child now put the boy down.
The child's mother swooned to the earth in relief.
Her husband gazed at me with an expression of the deepest gratitude.
I faced them, then faced the crowd.
I raised my sword to my brow to salute them all.
And right about then, the meaning of Sir Littleman's words made their way into my frazzled brain.
We were going to have a trial by combat.
That's how we were going to decide the outcome.
We were going to joust with each other to the death.
My sword sank to my side.
Shit.
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And now, back to another kingdom.
All this happened in such a confusion of high emotion that I was mounted on my stallion on the field of battle before I fully understood how completely and utterly screwed I was.
The crowd had shifted to watch the joust.
Some had climbed rocks or hills for a better view.
Some sat in the branches of the few nearby trees.
Even in the distant crystal city, I could make out workmen perched on the high shelves of scaffolding, ready to enjoy the contest from afar.
A long, narrow lane had been roped off right beside the cliffs.
From where I sat on my horse, I could look over the land's edge, down, down, down to the wild sea far below.
The white caps leapt and broke on fantastical rock formations.
Pillars and jags and rings of stone caught the brunt of the tide.
Water splashed through narrow gaps and the spray rose so high that some of the droplets, glistening silver in the sun, nearly reached the land above.
At the far end of the field near the pavilion, Sir Littleman was finishing his preparations.
Attendant fawns, still in their black morning robes, were fastening his armor about him as he pulled his gauntlets on over his hands.
He seemed confident and calm.
Beside him was a white war horse, a charger thick as a garbage truck, who looked as ready for the fight as he was.
I, meanwhile, had been relegated to a dusty spot about 100 yards away, where a yellow pennant had been hastily stuck into the ground to mark the end of the lane.
There I sat, clothed in my mercurial magic armor, trying to control my unsteady stallion.
Much sleeker and weaker than Littleman's humongous mount, the horse danced under me, huffing and tugging nervously against his reins.
An ogre handed me my lance, slung it up at me as lightly as if it were a baton.
But when I caught the thing, the weight of it nearly pulled me off the horse and sent me over the cliff down into the rocks and sea.
The lance was as heavy as a steel girder.
Fight with it?
I had no idea how I was even going to hold on to it.
Next, the ogre handed me a shield which was comical in its uselessness.
It was about the size of a postage stamp and curved at the top and bottom, which made it seem smaller still.
I figured if I used it just right, I might be able to defend approximately one nipple with it, not much more.
Maud, how do you joust?
The mutant rodent sat perched atop one of the poles that held the rope bordering the field.
How should I know?
Look at me!
I'm a giant squirrel!
And before that, I was a girl!
Jousting is not the sort of thing we do!
I looked down the field at Sir Littleman.
He looks like freaking Thor.
He's going to kill me.
And then they'll burn the family anyway.
So what was the point of my stepping in?
What do you mean?
What was the point?
You're a knight!
Elinda's knight!
This was an injustice!
You had to do something to stop it!
That's crazy.
If he kills me, I'm no good to anyone.
It's the principal of the thing!
The principal?
I cried as the horse fidgeted beneath me.
Are you out of your...
Sir Littleman and Sir Lively will now meet upon the field.
Sir Hammer spoke from where he stood beside little Sir Goodchild on the stage.
Even his voice was like a hammer blow, curt and hollow.
And who survives decides the fate of Favian and his kin?
The crowd cheered like it was a football game.
What had happened to all that solemn mourning for their dead emperor?
Well, never mind.
I took some hope, a faint, thin, sickly hope, from the fact that a few voices were raised in my favor.
There was even an attempt to start a chant for me, but it didn't last long.
Neither would I. When the flag is lowered, let the joust begin.
And with that, so help me I'm not making this up, a cute medieval chick with cascading raven hair slipped under the rope and took up a place at the midpoint of the field between me and Sir Littleman.
She was holding an emerald scarf to use as a starting flag.
It was exactly as if we were in a drag race or a game of chicken on the streets of Compton.
You know, where the prettiest babe waves the cloth before you hit the gas of your juiced-up Civic and shoot down Broadway Avenue.
This girl wasn't wearing cut-off shorts and a halter top, but her snug thigh-high tunic with its top cut low enough to show her remarkable cleavage served the same purpose.
I guess some essential rituals are universal, even in fantasy land.
I rounded my stallion to face Sir Littleman's charger.
I pressed the butt of my lance against my side with my arm hard as I could, trying to secure it.
But the point kept swinging back and forth and up and down, too heavy for me to control.
Meanwhile, I couldn't help but notice that Littleman's lance was as steady as the Empire State Building and pointed straight at me.
I shifted my shield, but the damn thing was so tiny I couldn't figure out which three inches of my body to defend.
The cute medieval hot rod chick lifted her green scarf high above her head.
I think I stopped breathing.
This was it.
Jousting time.
The scarf fluttered in the breeze from the ocean.
The babe looked at Sir Littleman.
She looked at me.
She let the flag drop.
i spurred the stallion and charged another kingdom the final season Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Voice Work Secrets00:00:36
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 7, Trial by Combat, was directed by Jonathan Hay.