Austin’s reckless return to the aerial duel with Sir Littleman leaves him mortally wounded, only to resurface in his apartment—where Jane’s execution looms by midnight after a murder charge tied to Orozgo’s corruption and Solomon Vine’s schemes. Haunted by self-blame and supernatural threats from the Eleven Lands, he proposes marriage through prison glass before dismissing Roland Phelps’ warnings as paranoia, unaware an assassin waits in his car. Meanwhile, Feltz races to uncover Jane’s framing, suspecting the Wizard Curtain’s hand, but his own backseat hides a Glock-wielding killer sent by Orozgo—setting the stage for a midnight betrayal. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
You know what makes no sense?
Uh, life?
Besides that, in this story, when you reached Iona, you found the emperor was dead and his brother's family was about to be executed for his murder.
So you intervened, and this powerful knight, Sir Littleman, challenged you to a joust to decide the issue.
Yeah.
So he's a knight.
You're you.
How could you possibly survive?
Ah, but did I?
Survive, I mean.
Austin.
Just wait.
This story is full of surprises.
Now, where did we leave off?
You and Sir Littleman were on your horses with your lances ready.
Right.
I charged.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 8.
Doorway into Death.
If the next few seconds were not the scariest and most suspenseful seconds of my life, it was only because my life had been so unrelentingly scary and suspenseful ever since I'd first stepped through the magic door into this crazy other world.
Sir Littleman's war horse thundered at me like some great machine.
My stallion raced toward him, swift and light.
My lance points swung everywhere except in the direction I was trying to aim at.
His lance point trained itself on my chest and never wavered.
My heart was in my throat as my whole life seemed to narrow down to the single onrushing instant of our meeting.
Our two horses rushed together until I could see the blue of Sir Littleman's eyes through his visor.
I could see the murder in his eyes too, my own sure and certain death hurtling toward me.
We were mere yards from the fatal collision when it came on me like a revelation.
This was nuts.
I had no chance here.
None.
I was about to be skewered like a roast-suckling pig.
And I thought, well, bullshit on that.
I pulled the reins up hard and dug my armored heels into the stallion's flank.
The horse knew what I wanted.
In fact, I suspect he had been thinking the same thing.
In any case, just before Sir Littleman and I collided, the stallion spread his lofty wings with a fluttering pop and we lifted into the air.
Up we flew and the crowd said, Oh, as Sir Littleman charged by underneath me, his lance points skewering nothing but the air between my horse's flailing hoofs.
The stallion's great wings, meanwhile, pumped and rose, and we kept climbing higher and higher toward the infinite blue before me.
My first instinct was to just keep going until I reached some semi-enlightened place, like Chicago, maybe, where people killed each other with guns like civilized human beings.
But the roar of the spectators washed up beneath me, some jeering in rage, some cheering with enthusiasm.
The sound reminded me that the contest wasn't settled.
If I ran away now, I would be leaving Favian and his wife and child to burn.
I sighed.
Damn it, I thought.
Disgruntled, I pulled the reins to turn the stallion.
His wings beat the high ocean air once again as he came swinging around in a long arc to return to the battlefield.
And as we turned, I saw, right there in the air in front of me, Sir Littleman.
His charger had wings too.
His charger, too, had left the ground.
His charger was also turning in an arc above the ocean just as I was turning.
He was lower than I was, down beneath me.
But we were both high, high above the ground as we completed our turns and faced each other.
So the joust wasn't over, not by a long shot.
It had simply taken to the sky.
Once again, we charged each other.
The black stallion's black wings rose and fell gracefully, tracing a majestic parabola in the air.
The white charger's white wings flapped bat rapidly, as if drumming a martial tattoo.
My higher position in the sky gave me some small advantage this time.
I was rocketing down at Sir Littleman, picking up speed.
Now the stallion folded his wings behind him and we went into a dive bomb glide.
But still, I could not get control of that massive lance.
I could not make it point the way I wanted it to.
And Littleman, climbing slowly toward me on his powerful flying destrier, had his lance pinned right on me again, unwavering.
This was no good.
I was going to die.
The two horses flew closer and closer.
I fought to control my lance point to no avail.
His lance point moved ever nearer to my heart.
In the final second before the clash, I lost my nerve.
I tried to make the stallion bank to the right to get out of the way of Littleman's weapon.
Sir Littleman expertly shifted the lance and kept the point trained on me.
Crying out in fear, I tried desperately to put the tiny shield in position to catch the blow.
And then, with a shattering crash, we came together mid-air.
I have no idea where my lance point went.
It was skewing off somewhere in space by then.
Littleman's point smashed right into my chest, high on the left side above my heart.
The edge of my shield took some of the blow and the liquid metal of my magic armor gathered at the spot in a last-ditch effort to keep me from being pierced clean through.
But the shot was a beauty all the same.
Sir Littleman's lance exploded against me in a spray of splinters.
I was knocked clean out of the saddle, my legs flying wide.
I felt my brain rattle in my skull.
The lump on the side of my head where the Yeti had slugged me tolled like a ding-dong bell.
And I fell.
Through my helmet's visor, I caught a glimpse of the earth far below, far enough so the impact would surely kill me.
I had lost my grip on my lance and could see it spinning down and down through the air toward the cliffs.
Only the fact that I managed to hold onto the flying stallion's reins with my left hand kept me from plummeting straight to my death.
I dropped to the length of the reins, yanking the stallion onto his side.
He let out a frightened whinny as we tumbled together toward oblivion.
His whole body thrashed as he tried to right himself.
I dangled helplessly, watching the ground speed toward me.
The stallion fought his way upright.
He spread his wings again.
One wing slapped me hard in the face and knocked me against the horse's flank.
I clung to the reins with one hand and frantically reached up with the other to grab the saddle.
I lifted my legs to try to keep them clear of the ground.
With only a few yards left before impact, the stallion went into a rapid glide, slowing our descent a little.
Nonetheless, we hit the earth hard, running at a gallop.
The jolt loosed my grip.
I was thrown free and went flying through the air.
The crowd gasped.
I smacked into the ground.
I said as the breath was knocked out of me.
But I kept rolling, trying to absorb the blow.
I went tumbling over and over in the dirt, catching glimpses of the edge of the cliff as I headed straight for it.
Dazed and coughing, I clutched at the earth with my mailed fingertips, cutting parallel furrows in the dirt.
I got purchase and stopped my roll just at the place where the earth ended.
My head went over the side and I saw the great waves hitting the jags and rings of rock way, way down below.
There, at the very limit of the world, I came to rest.
With the speed of panic, I rolled back the other way, putting some distance between me and the fatal drop.
I lay on my back and groaned with pain, a sound lost under the crowd's cheering and the tumult of the distant sea.
With a grunt of agony and effort, I turned onto one shoulder, my armor rippling around me.
My vision doubled and undoubled as I searched for Sir Littleman.
There he was.
His charger was just landing in a smooth trot.
Even as the horse was still running over the field, the knight dismounted with a graceful flowing motion, walking swiftly to keep his balance after he touched down.
I lay dazed, watching, as he tossed the butt of his shattered lance aside.
Still striding away from me, he drew his sword with a metallic swish.
Then he turned, trained his eyes on me, started walking toward me, ready to finish me off.
I felt hollowed out by the fall.
Every part of me ached.
My head was still buzzing from the shock of the lance.
But Sir Littleman and his sword were coming at me relentlessly.
I had to move.
I had to stand.
I let out a ragged growl as I pushed myself to one knee.
I braced one hand on my thigh, the other on the earth, and pushed myself up until I was on my feet, stumbling and swaying this way and that.
Sir Littleman threw up his visor.
I could see his teeth bared with determination.
I could see his eyes blazing with battle rage.
He picked up his pace as he got closer, almost running at me now.
He began to lift his sword to deliver the fatal blow.
I reached across my body for my own sword.
My hand closed on the hilt.
My bruised muscles sent pulses of pain through me as I used all my effort to draw the blade free.
Somehow, I managed to lift the sword up in front of me just as Sir Littleman swung with his.
Our two blades clashed together.
The blow sent me reeling backward, which saved my life as Sir Littleman swung again at once, trying to cut me in half, and the edge of his sword whisked through the spot where I had just been standing.
Without a pause, he charged again.
I braced myself, my sword up in front of me.
I sensed the brink of the cliff right behind me, but there was no time to look and see where it was.
Sir Littleman gave a war cry and unleashed a backhanded swing at my throat.
I turned my blade to meet it and blocked the blow.
Our swords locked together for a single second, our eyes locked together, our faces inches apart.
Then Sir Littleman lifted his foot high and kicked me in the belly.
I went staggering backwards and tumbled off the edge of the world.
I went off the cliff and plummeted.
It was a long way down, a long, long way.
I fell and fell and fell toward the sea.
My sword and armor vanished.
My body revolved in air.
I saw the crashing white caps and the rocks spiraling up at me from below.
I saw jags and mounds and circles of stone and a seething turmoil of water.
It didn't matter where I struck, whether I hit the rock or the ocean.
Dropping from this height, even the sea would be hard as concrete.
The last waves withdrew.
A shelf of ridged rock was revealed right below me.
That was the place I would probably strike.
There was a hole in the center of the shelf, a hole clean through.
I could see the dark water beneath it, churning in a burbling, hellish blackness.
Like a doorway into death, I remember thinking.
And then I thought, doorway.
With maybe a second left before I hit, I made a motion of my will toward the opening in the rock.
An instant later, I plummeted straight through the hole and was lying on the floor of the hole outside my apartment.
I made a childlike noise of terror and confusion.
I looked around, open-mouthed, clutching at the hallway carpet with my fingers, my mind reeling.
My eyes felt as large as two serving plates.
They filled with tears.
I felt a kind of madness of unknowing blow my thoughts away like feathers in the wind.
I could not make sense of anything.
I thought I would just go insane right then and there.
I thought I was insane.
But I was alive!
Panting and coughing, I began to sit up.
I groaned, my bruised body ached and my bones seemed to rattle.
I reached up to touch the throbbing place on my head where the Yeti had hit me and felt a sharp pang from the throbbing place on my chest where the lance had struck.
Then I let out a high shriek of shock and surprise as something made my body vibrate.
Why Else Would They Cover Up This?00:02:05
What is it?
What is it?
It was my phone, the phone in my pants.
Wasn't it after 1 a.m. here?
Who the hell could be calling me now?
I dug into my pocket and drew the phone out.
I read the readout.
Caller ID blocked.
I answered.
Hello?
A man's voice.
Is this Austin Lively?
Yeah, yes.
Who is this?
Jane Jane away.
Is she your girl?
Yes.
What about her?
You've got to get her out of lockup.
They're going to murder her in there.
Murder her?
Murder Jane?
Who?
How?
When?
They're going to hang her in her cell, make it look like suicide.
Tonight, around midnight.
You've got about 20 hours to get her.
By day's end, she'll be dead.
Hey folks, it's Andrew Clavin, writer and creator of Another Kingdom.
If you have questions about the show, then you're in luck.
Michael Knowles and I will be doing a special live discussion on Monday, November 25th at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific.
It will stream live on DailyWire.com, YouTube, and Facebook.
We'll talk about the process of making the show, our favorite moments so far, and most importantly, we'll be taking questions live from our dedicated fans.
But you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber to ask those questions.
So go right now and subscribe at DailyWire.com so you don't miss out.
Plus, subscribers get access to episodes three days early, as well as tons of other great content.
So what are you waiting for?
Go subscribe and be sure to tune in Monday, November 25th at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific for our live discussion.
And now, back to Another Kingdom, the final season.
Worst night ever.
Sleepless, guilt-ridden, scared out of my wits.
Worst Night Ever00:15:33
My brain was like a zombie apocalypse movie, crowded with images of ruin, death, and disaster.
And all of it my fault.
Mine.
Jane was in prison, charged with murder.
Would that be true if I hadn't abandoned her?
If she was guilty, if she had cracked under her abusive boss's tirades, wasn't I to blame?
If I hadn't stood there and watched while Alexis humiliated her in front of my entire office, I might have changed everything.
I might have saved her before she did what she did.
But she couldn't be guilty.
She would never commit murder, not Jane.
The whole deal had to be some kind of setup.
How else had Orozgo's cops turned up like they had, all unbidden?
Why else would they have covered up my presence on the scene?
You were never here.
And why else were they planning to hang her in her cell and make it look like a suicide?
They wanted to shut us up.
so they could use their journalists and movie makers and professors to tell the story the way they wanted it told.
And wouldn't that be my fault too?
Hadn't I forgotten about my attempts to expose Orozgo and his people when I became distracted by Solomon Vine and my movie?
No wonder Orozgo's cops thought they could count on my silence.
I'd joined their corrupt crew of propagandists when I signed that movie contract.
I had become one of them.
And while I was mucking about making movies and betting starlets and driving my fancy car, Curtin had gotten hold of the book Another Kingdom.
That's how he'd opened up a doorway to release his army on the 11 lands.
So that was my fault too.
And I was as helpless to stop the wizard as I was helpless to help Jane.
The Emperor Anastasius was dead, so my quest had come to nothing.
And anyway, if I went back to Aona now, I'd hit the sea at terminal velocity.
A split second after I crossed the threshold, I'd be gone in a bloody flash.
I tossed.
I turned.
I brooded like a gargoyle over the landscape of my catastrophe.
Every few minutes, some new anxiety occurred to me.
Some new guilt fed on me.
Some new mystery plagued me.
Who had called me with the warning about Jane?
Was he telling the truth?
Could I trust him?
I thought the voice had sounded vaguely familiar, but maybe not.
Maybe it was just my imagination.
If he was a friend, how did he know about the planned murder?
Was he on the inside of the plot?
Could he help me get to Jane?
And another puzzle.
Why had Solomon Vine bought my screenplay in the first place?
This really was mysterious.
Orozgo and I had had a deal.
I remembered this too now.
Orozgo had made some sort of pact with Curtin, back in his youth back in Russia.
Curtin had offered Orozgo power and influence, an entire age of history that would bear his name.
And in return, Orozgo had promised Curtin something.
Something that came due at the hour of Orozgo's death.
His empire?
His soul?
I didn't know.
It didn't matter.
The point was, as the hour of his death drew inevitably near, Orozgo was growing terrified.
He wanted me to recover the book Another Kingdom and use my power to defeat Curtin before Curtin could claim his prize.
So then why did he let Solomon Vine distract me by buying my script?
Why help Curtin get his hands on the book?
Did Orozgo think he could buy his way out of the deal by giving the wizard the power he wanted?
Or was Vine a renegade acting out some plot of his own?
I lay in bed, awake, exhausted, my body in pain, my mind in turmoil.
Only as the slow gray dawn ate its way through the night darkness, only then did I begin to formulate what could almost be called a plan.
When something like morning finally came, I fired up my handheld and streamed the news.
Alexis' murder and Jane's arrest were the lead stories everywhere.
I lay in bed and watched the video from last night.
A dazed and terrified Jane being led into the police station.
Then came an early morning press conference led by the chief of police, with Graciano and Lord standing behind him.
No one mentioned me.
No one said I had been present at the scene of the crime.
They really expected me to vanish.
You were never here.
For the next hour or so, there was little new information.
The news shows filled in the gaps with gossip.
There were endless interviews with associates and close friends of Alexis.
Stage hands and makeup girls and one minor co-star eager to get her face on screen.
They talked about Alexis' divorce from David Thune, her movie star husband.
They talked about the subsequent drug use that many said had left Alexis unemployable.
Thun's agent released a statement saying his client was devastated by the news of his ex-wife's death.
And there was a statement from Alexis' first husband, Solomon Vine, too.
Vine said he had been in negotiations with Alexis to find her a major part in his new picture, Another Kingdom.
Find her a major part.
He made it sound like he was doing her a favor, an act of charity to help her get back on her feet.
Sometime after 10 a.m., Jane was brought to the courthouse for her arraignment.
I lay in bed and watched the video images.
The police forced a pathway for her through the globular mass of jostling reporters.
Jane looked as scared and confused as she had when they arrested her, plus exhausted now too.
Her eyes narrowed against the merciless morning light, flicked this way and that as the reporters shouted her name.
I had often noticed how, when I returned to LA from Galeana and the Eleven Lands, that other kingdom lost its reality for me.
I came home with scars, bruises, life-threatening wounds.
But somehow, it made no difference.
The monsters who'd attacked me, the villains I'd dueled with, the whole far-off country became dreamlike once I was back in the so-called real world.
Now, though, now as I watched my terrified Jane hustled through the crowd, the real world lost its reality too.
I could barely bring myself to believe that what was happening was happening.
Jane was arraigned and sent back to jail without bail.
Her lawyer came out alone onto the courthouse steps and gave a brief statement to the press.
Roland Phelps, his name was.
Young, tall, and gangly, with receding red hair and blinky eyes behind big glasses.
He looked as dazed and confused as his client was.
I am still in the process of interviewing my client to get a fuller understanding of what happened last night.
Then we'll determine what course of action to take.
Right.
In other words, Roland Phelps thought Jane was guilty and was trying to convince her to make a deal and cop a plea.
Still, he was my only point of contact, my one chance to reach Jane.
She would have told him I was on the scene last night and he would want to talk to me.
So that's what I would do.
If Fine or Orozco or whoever was behind this mayhem, and if any of them thought I was going to keep my mouth shut to preserve my green-lighted picture, they could greenlight my ass.
My memory was back.
My soul was back.
I was back.
Them days were done.
I reached for the phone to call Roland Feltz.
But before I could grab it, the phone buzzed.
I answered.
It was Roland Feltz.
Jane was being held in the Blackwood Women's Detention Center downtown.
The tower.
That's what they called it.
It was easy to see why.
The jail looked like the crumbling ruin of some forbidden castle in a cheap horror movie.
It loomed darkly at the center of a government compound, which otherwise consisted of a collection of low barracks-style buildings.
There was a fence around the compound, a diamond-link fence topped with razor wire.
There were guard towers and giant spotlights positioned at the corners.
The tower itself was a strange pile of a place.
Really strange.
Half of it was 20 stories tall, and half was shorter, maybe 15, so that it looked lopsided, like it was rotten, sloping over, about to fall.
The stone of the walls was basalt gray, a strange non-color that blended in with the cloudy sky behind it, so that portions of the structure seemed to vanish at times, giving the whole thing a weird, shifting, and sinister aspect.
The place seemed at once vital and moribund, a hungry monster and a dying beast.
I could imagine Jane looking out the prison bus as she first arrived here, her heart sinking.
I felt pretty much the same way as I met Feltz in the parking lot and he led me inside.
I had agreed to speak with the lawyer on condition I could talk to his client first.
The thing was, I didn't think my testimony would help Jane much.
I had found her covered in blood and carrying a butcher knife while drugged out of her mind.
If anything, I'd make a better witness for the prosecution than for the defense.
Plus, I wasn't sure whether to trust the lawyer.
If the guy who warned me about the attack on Jane was on the up and up, why hadn't he called Phelps instead of me?
Anyway, Phelps guided me through the security rigor marole in the jail lobby.
Then, once I got through the metal detector, an enormous female corrections officer who looked so help me like the female corrections officer balloon in the Thanksgiving parade took me to the row of visitor windows.
I sat on my little stool in my little booth and waited.
After a few minutes, another balloon-like CO brought Jane in.
You have 15 minutes, she told us.
Jane had always dressed in schlumpy clothes so as not to excite her boss's envy, but the sight of her in her county outfit, her papery yellow shirt and blue sweatpants, made my heart hurt as if a giant fist were squeezing it.
The expression on her face told me she was still in shock, still stunned into passivity and despair.
The thought went through my head.
It will be easy for them to kill her.
She won't even put up a fight.
She settled onto the stool on her side of the glass.
We both picked up our intercom phones.
We did that thing that jail visitors do in movies, where we put our hands on the small square window as if we could touch each other.
It turns out that's just something you do.
A smile flickered at the corner of Jane's mouth.
I knew you'd come.
It was pitiful.
That was all she counted on.
I'd come.
My eyes filled.
I'm so sorry, Jane.
Oh, no.
No.
What I did when Alexis yelled at you like that.
How I just stood there.
Oh, no, sweetheart.
That's all right.
Really.
That word, that sweetheart on her lips.
The fact that she was comforting me like I was a child who'd made an innocent mistake.
It was like the drop of water that breaks the dam.
Emotions surged over my resistance and flooded through me.
Listen to me.
Here's the thing.
The thing is, I love you.
You have to know, I've always loved you.
I've been afraid because, because I knew there was no loving you halfway.
I knew it meant marriage and children and then more children and adulthood and a whole life together till death do us part.
And I, I shook my head.
Jane gazed at me through the glass for an endless moment, and then she flushed and smiled and put her hand over her mouth.
Oh, that makes me so happy.
And she burst into tears.
Tears of joy.
No, really.
She was in jail.
She was charged with murder, and she was crying tears of joy because I loved her.
Which, of course, only made me feel worse.
Even more guilty for how I'd failed her.
Ah, Jane, I'm so sorry.
No, no, it's all right now.
I'm happy now.
I am.
You know I love you too.
You know I've always loved you.
Always.
I put my hand over my eyes.
I stifled a groan.
I wished I'd never heard of Solomon Vine.
I wished I could flash back to Aona right then and there and smash into the sea and be particleized on impact.
Anything would be less excruciating than this.
Finally, I took a breath, a trembling breath, and got myself under control.
Time was short.
There was so much to say.
I raised my eyes and looked through the window at her.
She was still beaming, her cheeks still streaming with tears.
My gaze went up and around the little booth, checking for microphones or cameras.
I didn't see any, but I figured they had to be there.
They probably record these calls.
Yes.
Tell me what you can.
Her narrow shoulders lifted and fell under the papery yellow shirt.
I was working.
I think I fell asleep at my desk.
I woke up and there was someone standing there in the doorway.
A man, I think.
But he was very dark, just a shadow.
And that's all.
After that, I don't remember anything.
I remember you.
I remember you carrying me into the house.
But it's all confused.
You must have been drugged then.
The man must have drugged you.
She hurriedly swiped the tears off her face.
I don't know.
Yes, maybe.
I don't know, but I would never have hurt her, Austin.
Of course not.
I wasn't even angry at her.
At Alexis, I mean.
Not really.
She'd always been very good to me.
She really was.
I mean, she was a movie star and had her ego and all, but she gave me extra money when my mother got ill.
She let Skylar live with me when she had nowhere to go.
She was a kind person.
It was just the divorce that made her, you know, what she turned into.
The divorce and then the drugs.
They ruined her.
That's why I stayed with her.
To take care of her until she was well.
Because she took care of me when I needed it.
It didn't seem right to just leave her.
My plan was to wait until she was working again.
That was her medicine.
Why She Stayed00:09:51
Work.
She was desperate for work.
But the stories about the drugs got around and no one would hire her.
Except Mr. Vine.
She kept saying Mr. Vine would hire her.
She was sure of it.
And then, when he did hire her, well, I just thought, okay, she'll be all right now.
I just wanted to make sure they signed the contracts and then I was going to leave.
And in the meantime, those rages of hers, the things she said to me.
They didn't hurt me, Austin.
Because I knew she was in pain and I was helping her.
I smiled sorrowfully into her blue green eyes, eyes glassy with weariness and with crying.
What jury in the world would believe in Jane, I wondered.
Who would believe in her kindness and her patience, her willingness to tolerate Alexis' abuse in order to do what she thought was right?
The jurors would never buy it.
They would just think it was weakness and passivity.
They would think she had stored up her anger and finally struck back.
They wouldn't understand, Jane.
Your lawyer.
Can you trust him?
She nodded.
He's an old friend from college.
Is he in love with you?
She rolled her eyes.
Don't be silly.
I nodded.
So that meant, yes, he was in love with her.
Every man who met Jane fell in love with her.
It was an occupational hazard of being the single most feminine human being on the planet.
But it probably meant he was trustworthy.
All right.
All right.
Listen.
Then I said again, listen, listen.
Because I wasn't talking to her, not just to her.
I was talking to the jail, to the people who ran the jail.
There are people who want to hurt you.
Jane breathed deep.
She nodded.
She knew, or she'd guessed.
Whoever had set her up couldn't let her live to testify.
They want to make it look like suicide, but it won't be suicide.
And I'll know it wasn't.
Do you understand?
Austin, don't.
If anyone hurts you, if anyone touches you, they'll pay.
I'll make them pay.
And if they think I'm going to keep my mouth shut about it.
Austin, please.
There's something going on.
I don't know what.
But it's dangerous.
You have to be careful.
I couldn't stand it if you were hurt.
Listen to me.
Look at me, Jane.
Her whole body shook as she peered through her tears and through the window.
Marry me.
Live with me forever.
Have children with me.
Lots and lots of children.
A whole country's worth.
She sobbed and started crying again.
I always wanted to.
You will.
We will.
I swear it.
She smiled even as she went on crying.
It made that big invisible fist squeeze my heart all the tighter.
And sure, I knew how hopeless this was.
It was impossible for me to save her.
Impossible for me to get her out of this place before midnight, before the killers came.
But I would.
Somehow, I would.
I leaned forward.
I pressed my nose to the cold glass.
She leaned forward and pressed her face to mine.
I clutched the phone in my trembling hand.
So help me.
So help me, God, I'll come for you.
The lawyer, Phelps, was waiting for me in the tower foyer, sitting empty-eyed on a bench near the metal detectors.
He stood up as I returned from the visitor's room and we walked together out into the parking lot.
Up close and in person, Phelps did not inspire confidence.
He had the look of a kid who'd prepared for the essay test in English lit and suddenly found he was taking the short answer quiz in calculus.
His gangly body waved like a stalk of wheat above me.
He blinked down at me gormlessly through his big glasses.
You know she didn't do it, right?
Well, she says her recollection is confused.
Yeah, that's the wrong answer, Felts.
Jane would never kill anybody.
You have to know that.
He did know it somewhere deep down.
But that sort of knowledge had been lawyered out of him at lawyer school.
She saw a man in her workroom doorway.
After that, she can't remember anything.
The guy obviously drugged her.
Felts swayed back and forth up there.
It's a hard sell to a jury.
The way she was, the way you found her.
It looks bad.
I nodded, glancing off across the barren complex.
Faceless barracks.
Heartless barbed wire.
He had a point.
I have a source who says they're going to try and kill her tonight.
Surprised, Phelps let out a laugh.
Who is?
I don't know.
The same people who set her up, I imagine.
They're going to hang her in her cell, try to make it look like a suicide.
For a lawyer, Phelps had a lousy deadpan.
I could practically read his thoughts.
He was thinking, this guy is crazy.
Well, she's in jail, remember.
I don't think we have to worry too much.
Felts.
Felts look at me.
Look in my eyes.
Do I look like some lunatic conspiracy theorist?
Yes, almost exactly.
Okay, maybe that was the wrong question.
My point is, you have to take some precautions.
Get her on 24-hour watch.
Tell the press there have been threats against her.
Tell them she's not suicidal.
You see what I'm saying?
Maybe if they know we know they're coming, they'll think twice before they come.
Here, Phelps actually paused long enough to study me.
His manner changed a little.
He became thoughtful.
The press all seemed to be against her.
They've already convicted her.
I decided not to respond to that.
How could I tell him?
Orozgo had been taking over the press for decades.
They were his people, in on the setup.
It would only make me sound more paranoid.
Listen, Feltz, this is Jane we're talking about.
You know what she is, right?
What she's like?
His long body went up and down as he drew a deep, wistful breath and blew it out again.
He knew all right.
He knew Jane.
He loved her.
They hadn't lawyered that out of him.
So take care of her.
And I'll be in touch.
I started to move away toward my car.
He seemed to wake up at that.
What do you mean?
What are you going to do?
I'm going to see if I can find out what really happened.
Ow!
Wait, maybe I can help.
Where are you going?
Who are you going to talk to?
I kept on walking.
If I couldn't tell him about Orozgo, how was I going to explain that I needed to talk to the Queen of Galeana?
She's from this other kingdom, Feltz.
She was exiled here to Los Angeles for her own safety by the king of Shadow Wood.
Long story.
Hell, even I found that hard to believe.
But going to see the queen was the only thing I could think of.
If Orozgo had framed Jane, and if Orozgo was in league with the Wizard Curtain, then the wisest queen in all the world might be the one person who could help me make the connections and figure out what to do.
Moving under the shadow of the guard towers, I wove through the parked cars to my Mercedes.
I was preoccupied, my mind as jammed up as a rush-hour freeway with images, anxieties, and ideas.
Nothing made any sense to me.
Why had Jane been set up?
How had the Emperor been murdered?
Why did Orozgo let Curtin get the book?
How could I get Jane out of the tower before midnight?
I opened the car door and lowered myself inside.
I pulled the door shut as I slid behind the wheel.
I started the car and glanced up into the rearview mirror.
You know that scene in every thriller movie ever made where the guy gets into his car, looks in the mirror, and finds the evil assassin sitting in the back seat?
Every time I've seen that scene, I've always told myself that could never happen to me.
I told myself, if ever I was in some dangerous situation, I would never get into a car without checking the back seat first.
Of course I wouldn't.
What was I, some kind of idiot?
Well, yes, it turned out.
Some kind of idiot was exactly what I was.
Because I looked up into the rearview mirror and sure enough, there was an evil assassin sitting right behind me.
The guy looked like a veritable priest of the cult of death.
Lean as a skeleton, dressed all in black, his skullish face topped with a black beret, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses with black lenses in their round frames.
He held up a gun so I could see it in the mirror.
A boxy automatic.
A Glock, I think.
For at least one full second, I was absolutely certain he was about to blow my brains out.
But he didn't even point the weapon at me.
He just held it there, turned it this way and that, showed it off to me.
Then he said, Orozco wants to see you.
Gun Showmanship00:00:43
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 8, Doorway Into Death, was directed by Jonathan Hay.