In Another Kingdom Ep. 9, the protagonist confronts media moguls like Jonathan Broughton and Gerald Hannity at Serge Orozco’s deathbed, where he reveals a cryptic flower sketch and warns of "Curtin," the puppet master behind their world. Orozco’s final plea—"don’t let Richard take me"—exposes the brother’s role in orchestrating power through media and murder, leaving the protagonist trapped between resistance and complicity as Richard coldly demands submission. The episode ends with a silent standoff: one brother to dismantle the system, the other to bury them both. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
Are you bringing me a glass of wine?
Don't I bring you a glass of wine every evening?
You do.
You're a wonderful human being.
It's so true.
You look sad.
I was thinking about my sister.
Yes, it's a sad world sometimes.
So why do we give up so much to try to save it?
You're a hero, Doofus.
That's your job.
Well, the pay is crap, but at least the benefits are non-existent.
I beg your pardon.
Okay, not all the benefits.
Come on.
We'll do one more round before sunset.
You lost the joust and were falling toward your death when you made it back to LA and went to the prison.
Right.
And then yet another killer waylaid me and took me to see the man himself, Serge Orozco.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 9.
The mystery solved.
I had taken this drive once before, up into the hills to where the city disappeared, where there was nothing along the winding road except trees and wild grasses.
Coincidentally enough, the last time I'd driven here, there'd also been an assassin in the back seat.
Sarah, his name was.
Kittenface, I called him.
A few days after we met, I'd smacked Kittenface in his kitten face with a piece of rebar and sent him falling off a girder to his death.
With that thought in mind, I glanced up at the guy in the Mercedes rear view.
One day it'd be nice to come here without a gun pointed at the back of my head, I told him.
Sarah had been chatty.
I'd gotten some info out of him.
This fellow, not so much.
The black-clad priest of death just smirked and looked out the window at the scenery.
We passed through a gate onto the home stretch.
The long driveway was lined, as it had been before, with armed guards, stony-faced ex-military men, each one holding a rifle on his hip.
Orozgo's mansion came into view above us, a flowing modern ranch house that seemed to grow organically out of the hillside.
There were a lot of cars parked up here.
Nice cars, fancy cars, Mercedes, beamers, even a Bentley, all bunched together in the cul-de-sac at the end of the drive.
I pulled to the side of the road just where the cul-de-sac began.
I killed the engine.
One of the stony riflemen held the door open for me, like a typical LA valet, but with more firepower.
I got out of the car and the priest got out behind me.
The priest and the gunman exchanged looks, but no words.
I could tell by their expressions, though, something big was happening here.
Something serious.
I walked up the flagstone path to the house.
The priest strolled behind me, his hands in his black slacks, his eyes hidden behind his black glasses, his gun hidden under his black jacket.
A butler opened the front door.
I recognized him.
It was the same killer I'd met at Orozco's other mansion up north in Hope Ranch six months ago.
We nodded at each other.
Then I stepped past him into the house.
I went through the foyer into the expansive rustic living room.
The gathering here reminded me of the scene at the cliffs back in Iona, the emperor's funeral.
Everyone was wearing black here, too.
They were mostly men, but a few women mixed in.
Some of them I knew by sight.
Jonathan Broughton.
He ran a movie studio here in LA, Apex Pictures.
Gerald Hannity.
He ran the big cable news station.
The motherly little blonde, Susan Roth.
She was the CEO of a giant tech company with search engines and all that.
Broughton and Hannity had been at the party at Solomon Vines.
I mean, they'd been at the party within the party.
The one in the back by the guesthouse, the one with children.
I had recognized them then, but it was only now I remembered why I knew them and why I knew Susan Roth as well.
I'd looked them up online after I'd seen their names on the wall of Orozco's forest retreat in Oregon.
They were part of his 730 club, movers and shakers he'd put in place over the decades after removing their predecessors through murder and scandal and extortion.
They were the ones who would be shaping the narrative, the news stories and the feature articles and the books and the movies about Jane and Alexis.
How Alexis abused Jane, how Jane killed her and then hanged herself in her cell.
And here they all were, gathered together in the big room with its towering stone fireplace ablaze, with its columned wall open on the misty spring morning, and a majestic view over the patio onto the sprawling city far below.
Here they all were, dressed in mourning, murmuring to one another in somber tones, lifting bone china coffee cups with gold inlaid to their grim lips.
When I entered the room, the conversation paused for a moment.
Every gaze turned my way.
The priest of death didn't give me much time to gaze back.
He kept moving behind me, shepherding me along like he was a herding dog and I was his flock.
But before I was forced clean out of the room, I did see one thing.
The main thing.
The shocking thing.
I saw a cluster of worthies gathered in one corner.
I could tell at a glance this was the room's power center.
This was the place where the really important people were.
And as the really important people turned to look at me, the cluster opened to reveal the focus of their attention.
The VIP of VIPs, the king of the room, the godfather di Tutti Godfathers.
And who do you think that was?
Sitting there in a thick leather armchair like a man enthroned.
That's right.
My big brother, Richard.
He lifted his bone china cup from its bone china saucer.
He sipped from it, gazing at me over the rim with death-cold eyes.
I actually gasped at the sight of him, and at the sight of the crowd around him, that crowd of worshipful attendants.
There was the narrow arrangement of sharp edges I called my mother.
There was the blinky, distracted professorial fascist I called Dad.
And Solomon Vine.
He was also there, paying homage to Richard.
Vine turned to gaze at me with a baleful expression that made me suspect the green light for my movie had just turned red forever.
All this I saw in a single stomach-churning, mind-melting, soul-crushing moment, just long enough for me to realize, or to realize again, or to realize with grim finality, that I came from a family of very nasty people, that all my childhood memories were lies, that my whole life had led me to this present darkness.
Then the assassin priest hurried me on.
We passed out of the living room.
We headed down a shadowy hall.
There was a double doorway at the end.
Both doors were open wide.
There was a rifleman standing to the left of the entrance and a rifleman standing to the right.
With the priest behind me, I walked between them, full of dread.
I crossed the threshold and saw Orozgo.
The old man was dying.
There couldn't be any doubt about that.
He was a mere remnant of what he'd been just months ago, a shriveled worm of a former man.
He lay on a four-poster bed the size of Sacramento.
He seemed a tiny figure there, propped on a mountain of pillows, floating in a sea of tangled sheets littered with notebook pages.
It would have been amazing to me that so powerful a figure could sink so near to death without making the news, except for the fact that most of the people who ran the news business were in his living room sipping coffee from bone china cups.
There was no one else in the room but a nurse, a reedy young blonde man of girlish beauty, dressed in hospital white.
He was seated in a chair against the wall to my left.
He was slouched in the seat, watching Serge with what seemed to me a languorous hunger.
He seemed to be waiting for the old man to melt to pure fluid so he could gulp the remains of him down in a milkshake glass.
He looked like a figure out of allegory, oblivion personified.
With the priest of death pressuring me from behind, I moved closer to Orozgo until I was standing beside one of the posters at the foot of his big bed.
I looked down from there at the ruins of the man.
His body, clothed in a scarlet bathrobe, had shrunk to nothing.
His head seemed enormous, a great gray square.
The last time I'd seen him, his face, made papery smooth by plastic surgery, had had the wide-eyed expression of a startled baby.
Now it looked to me like melted wax, his eyes just two huge, viscous orbs floating in the sagging mess of what had been his features.
Those giant eyes stared up at me.
There was no expression left in them but sheer terror.
Terror of the death that had finally come for him.
You, he said, in a hoarse, harsh whisper.
How you doing, Serge?
How am I?
Look at me.
I nodded.
Sorry.
You.
I made a helpless gesture to indicate his condition.
Not me, Serge.
It is what it is.
You know that.
He moved a trembling hand toward one of the pages that lay spread out on the sheets around him.
You said, you said you would destroy him.
I followed his gesture.
Until that moment, I had thought the pages scattered on the bed were documents of some kind.
Graphs or spreadsheets, business stuff.
But now I looked closer at the page he indicated.
The faint lines scrawled there weren't graph lines after all.
It was a pencil sketch of a figure.
A man.
All the pages were pictures, and all the same, the same man.
The man in the pictures wore a dark flowing robe.
He had a cowl pulled up over his head.
Under the cowl, I could make out his face, his raisiny wrinkles, the tuft of hair on his chin, his burning, beady little eyes.
It was a face I knew, the face I had met in the dark of the forest mansion, the face I had seen in the graveyard in the woods.
It was the face that had tempted me into amnesia.
The face of Curtin, the wizard.
Orozgo heaved a gasping breath.
I'd see him all the time now.
Every hour of the day.
In the shadows, hidden in the glare of the sun when it comes through the window in the morning.
In the mirror, standing behind me, floating over me when I wake up in the night.
He's waiting.
Waiting for the end.
Where does he come from, Austin?
How does he come?
I gazed down at the old man dolefully.
It's funny about death.
It can make you feel sorry for almost anyone.
I don't know how exactly.
Remember you said something about, I don't know, quantum mechanics and metaphor minds and how subatomic particles get arranged so we can pass between realms, whatever.
It's something like that.
We become doorways.
That's all I know.
We become doorways into another kingdom.
The people there pass through us into this world, and sometimes vice versa.
That's all I know.
Doorways, Orozgo repeated dully, staring at me with the giant eyes in his melted wax face.
Those terrible, terrified eyes grew misty, and he whispered again.
You promised.
I didn't know what to say.
The mystery that had plagued my sleepless night returned to me.
If Orozgo wanted me to go back to the Eleven Lands and destroy Curtain, why had he allowed Solomon Vine to keep me here?
Wasn't Vine Orozgo's protégé?
Why had he arranged to distract me while Curtin got hold of Elinda's magic manuscript with all its doorway-making powers?
I was about to speak, but I stopped with my mouth open.
I drew a sharp breath as the answer came to me.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the bedroom's double doors.
My lips moved silently, shaping a single word, a single name.
Richard.
My brother.
Orozgo made an awful noise.
A long rattling sigh, like a man dying.
But he wasn't dying yet.
He was crying out to me, crying out in anguish with all the breath he had left.
Don't let him, Austin.
Don't let him take me.
I turned back to face him.
I looked into those puddling eyes, those fallen features.
How could I explain to him that there was nothing left for me to do?
The Emperor was dead.
My quest had failed.
And even if I returned through the doorway into Aona, I would plunge into the ocean and die myself.
Curtin had already won.
With his desperate cry, Orozgo had knocked one of his sketches off the bed covers.
It had floated to the floor, face down, near my feet.
I stooped to pick it up.
As I lifted it, I saw that this sketch, this one alone, was different from the others.
Not a picture of Curtin.
It was a still life.
A flower.
A rose, maybe.
Something like a rose.
There was a scroll underneath it.
Letters?
Numbers?
I wasn't sure.
I put it back on the bed.
He clutched at it, crumpling it in his withered hands.
Policy Genius Revelation00:02:02
I'm sorry, Serge.
There's nothing I can do for you anymore.
His answer was a stuttered gasp of horror and despair.
His shoulders shook.
He was crying, I think, but his substance was so drained and dry, there were no tears left for him to shed.
I looked at the others.
The beautiful, hungry nurse waiting.
The priest of death, his eyes hidden behind his black glasses.
A room without pity.
I started moving to the door.
I had to go see my brother.
Hey folks, it's Andrew Clavin, author of Another Kingdom.
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Now, back to Another Kingdom.
I walked quickly back into the living room.
To my surprise, it was empty now.
Nothing moving here but the fire in the great stone fireplace.
No sound but the crackling blaze.
It was like some sort of magic trick.
I Can't Explain It00:11:45
In the little space of time I'd been gone, all the black-clad VIPs had vanished.
No, wait.
There they were.
They were out on the patio.
All except three.
Richard and my mom and dad were still here, still in the room, still in their power corner.
My brother was still enthroned on his leather chair, his blue eyes bright beneath his swept-back golden hair, his lips tight behind his golden beard.
My parents still stood around him, my mother ramrod straight, her angular body clothed in a taut black dress, her patrician face haughty beneath her brittle curls, my willowy father fidgeting and muttering beside her.
My family.
I strolled over to them, casual as I could.
My hands in my pockets, I lifted my chin to them.
I gave my brother a half-smile, a cynical smile.
Your man is dying.
Richard gazed up at me.
It was hard to meet his eyes.
There had been some feeling between us once, not that long ago.
Used to be I could catch a glimpse of some tremulous candle flame of remorse in him, some tremulous flicker of humanity.
But no more.
Because Orozgo was dying.
And now all that power was about to fall into his successor's hands, into Richard's hands.
My brother's eyes were a viper's eyes now, dead and deadly.
Everyone dies, he told me.
My father, like some muddled Greek chorus, murmured to himself, That's true.
You can't deny that.
That's perfectly true.
Yeah, everyone dies.
But not everyone dies like this.
Richard snorted.
Like what?
Death is death.
Is it?
Because I don't think it's death he's afraid of.
Not just death anyway.
Serge has lost his nerve.
He has some fantasy of damnation.
Who knows what goes through a man's mind at the end?
The point is just.
He's lost his nerve for the job at hand.
The job of making the world a better place.
That's right.
The Orozgo age.
He made a gesture.
Or the Richard Lively age now, huh?
It doesn't matter what you call it.
Doesn't it?
No, I guess it doesn't.
As long as you're the one in charge of things, right?
He didn't answer.
You or the man in the cowl?
For a moment, Richard averted his eyes.
His lips tightened.
So you've seen him too, huh?
The man in Serge's drawings, the little wizardy man with the wrinkled face.
I've seen his drawings.
Those drawings would give anyone nightmares.
Yeah, nightmares.
That must be what they are.
He gazed up at me coldly again.
Like I said, Serge has lost his nerve.
That's all.
Once a man loses his nerve, he's useless.
What Richard is saying is, we can't let Serge scuttle his life's work just because of some deathbed conversion or other.
This was my mother, speaking with a tone of great authority, and yet speaking neither to me nor Richard, nor anyone else unless it was some unseen phantom in the shadowy air between us.
She was lecturing the empty space around her.
It's true.
He would have thrown it all away to save himself.
And from what? said my mother, as if there could be no reasonable answer.
Save himself from what?
My father was pretending to study the arm of the armchair, squinting down at it, picking at the brass buttons.
Exactly.
Save himself from what?
I wasn't sure what they were talking about.
What had Orozgo been planning to do?
Was he going to confess his sins to the world?
Spread the word that he'd murdered and blackmailed and finagled people out of their jobs until every news source, every source of entertainment, every university and high school in the country was brainwashing people to accept their own enslavement at his hands.
And here's another thing I didn't know.
What had Richard done to stop that confession?
Serge was old, really old.
He was going to melt into the bedsheets eventually.
But had Richard decided to help him along to keep him quiet?
Was that why everyone was dressed in black?
Because they already knew how the day would end?
I didn't suppose I'd ever learn the answer to that.
But there was something I did want to understand.
Was it you who told Solomon Vine to buy my screenplay?
You, not Orozgo?
Richard answered with a smug little smile.
I told you, Austin, didn't I?
Didn't I tell you you could choose a good life or a bad life?
A happy, successful life with achievements and rewards, or you could choose a hunted life, a bad life, a despised life, a short life.
I just made good things available to you so you would choose wisely.
That's all.
I laughed mirthlessly.
A short life, huh?
Are you threatening me now, big brother?
The good life or the short life?
Is that the choice you're giving me?
No one is threatening anyone.
Who's threatening?
But Richard, he answered mary a word.
He just looked at me, and I looked back, and we exchanged those silent looks, the two of us, for a long, long time.
I was thinking about how my big brother taught me to swing a baseball bat when I was little.
How he stood behind me, holding my shoulders, adjusting my stance.
He taught me how to choke up and shorten my swing after the second strike.
I was always a good singles hitter because of him.
I indicated the crowd of black-clad power players out on the patio.
So that's it, huh?
The work goes on.
All these poo-bahs are in your pocket now.
Now they'll spread your news and tell your stories and push your philosophy and elect your followers to run your world.
Is that how it works?
After another long moment, Richard finally answered me.
Don't trouble your mind, little brother.
Make your movie.
Surge is not long for this world.
Whatever deal you made with him, it's done.
Make your movie, Austin.
Make your money.
Enjoy your women.
Enjoy your fame.
Forget about all this.
It's just the world.
The world belongs to those who want it most.
Do you think anyone cares who runs it, who makes the decisions for them?
As long as we give them their daily bread, our will be done.
Make your movie with Solomon, Austin.
Why are you fighting us?
To win what?
Are you so fond of the burden of battle?
Set it down, bro.
Make your movie.
Well, that's the whole point.
What can you win but the burden?
That is, that is.
That's the whole point.
I looked at my brother, then my mother, then my father, then my brother again.
It was odd.
Standing there with them, I thought I could smell the house I grew up in.
I suppose I could have gone all moralistic on them then.
I could have brought up Solomon Vine's party, the cable news guy and the studio guy out by the guesthouse, those children with their empty stares of despair and betrayal, those helpless slaves of men's desire.
But no, Richard was right.
Make your movie.
That's what all the most beautiful people did.
All those beautiful people at Solomon Vine's party.
They were making their movies while the little shindig at the guesthouse went on in plain sight.
And while Richard took over everything.
Well, screw it.
What could one man do against all this power?
A schmo like me.
A nobody like me.
If Big Brother wanted the world so badly, he could have it.
Okay, I'll make my movie.
Good man.
On one condition.
He lifted one corner of his mouth.
What can I do for you, bro?
Jane.
Richard's brows lowered.
He was puzzled.
Jane?
Jane Janeaway.
The girl who was arrested for killing Alexis Meriwether.
Oh, right.
What about her?
I love her.
She didn't do it.
Let her go.
My brother made a noise of dismissal.
Pfft.
He wrinkled his nose and screwed up his lips.
Come on, Auss.
I can't do that.
Sure you can.
Look at you.
You're the head honcho.
The capo di cappuccino, the tutti di tuttifruttis.
Just say the friggin' word.
He lifted his shoulder again.
Sorry, man.
It's complicated.
I can't explain the whole thing to you.
You're just gonna have to trust me on this.
Oh, for goodness sake, Austin.
There are plenty of other women in the world.
I've all the things to get hung up on.
Plenty of women.
I would have laughed in their faces if I could have laughed at all.
These people, I thought.
People like these.
These people who want everything.
They always want too much, you know?
If they just let you breathe a little, let you speak your peace, let you have your loves and hates and be your human self.
If they could just step back and let you think what you think and choose this over that and have a say in how your life goes day to day, well, you might just shrug them off.
Let them have their governments and their news outlets and their social media and their movies.
Let them run the whole shebang.
Who would care if they just leave you alone just a little?
But they can't do it.
That's not who they are.
They have to control everything.
The mere idea that somewhere someone might be thinking a thought that's not their thought might secretly in their heart of hearts disagree with them or condemn them.
They can't abide it.
So you either have to live on your knees forever or take your free soul in your fist and cram it down their throats until they choke on it and die.
There is no third way.
I looked down at my big brother in his leather throne with his golden hair and his golden godlike beard.
Control Freaks00:02:04
The guy who had taught me to play baseball when we were kids.
I looked at him and I thought, I have to stop you.
And he looked up at me and he thought, I have to kill you.
We didn't have to speak.
We were brothers after all.
We heard each other.
Loud and clear.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 9, The Mystery Solved, was directed by Jonathan Hay.
Hey folks, it's Andrew Clavin, writer and creator of Another Kingdom.
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