Austin Lively, mistaken for Emperor Anastasius after a near-death experience, embraces the role as supernatural forces punish betrayers and free the cursed—knights vanish in flames, Favian’s chains dissolve, and Maud transforms. Back in L.A., he witnesses Orozgo’s death by a soul-leeching entity, clutching a carnation sketch and the whispered name "Amadis." Dialing the number beneath it, Detective Carnation answers with reverence, confirming Austin’s new reality: a hidden world of divine judgment and monstrous horrors now demands his action. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
You know, I think I'm beginning to get this story.
Are you?
That makes one of us.
You came back from hell, back to the cliffs of Aona, and the people hailed you as the emperor.
Yeah.
And.
And what happened then?
Well, I had so totally not seen that coming.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 14.
Emperor mode I had so totally not seen this coming My first instinct, of course, was to correct their error.
Better to tell the truth right away than have them find me out and get all pissed off at me for trying to fool them.
So I stepped further out of the tomb to give them a good look at who I really was.
I raised my hand.
I was about to say something like, no, sorry, folks.
Silly mix up here.
It's just me, Austin Lively.
I just put the Emperor's clothes on because I was cold.
Sorry about the confusion.
But before I could say anything, a woman rushed out of the crowd.
A peasant woman, she looked like, plump and coarse-faced, wearing a worn canvas shift.
I started back.
I figured she was about to denounce me now that she'd had a closer look at my face.
But she dropped to her knees.
She seized my left hand.
She kissed it again and again, dampened it with her tears.
My emperor!
Forgive me for doubting you.
I was afraid.
I should have known that even death could not defeat you.
I stared down at her.
I looked up at all the others.
Many of them had begun crying.
No, no, listen, there's been a mistake here.
But now the three knights were coming down the stairs from the parade stand.
The handsome littleman, the boy-sized and angelic Good Child, the hammer-faced hammer.
All three were coming toward me with expressions of wide-eyed awe.
Even then, I thought they were going to accuse me.
Even then, I was preparing to unleash my most ingratiating smile to try to apologize for the unintentional deception.
I mean, after all, they were looking right at me.
Couldn't they see who I was?
No, they couldn't.
The three knights.
They dropped to their knees too, same as the woman, same as the crowd.
My emperor, said Sir Littleman, staring in abashed bewilderment at the ground.
We.
We didn't.
My emperor!
Hail!
We didn't realize!
Hail!
My Emperor! said Sir Goodchild in a trembling whisper.
Hail!
Sir Hammer mouthed the words, but no sound came out of him.
Well, at this point, I was completely confused.
These guys were the Emperor's knights, his closest advisors.
If anyone would know him on sight, they'd be the ones.
And if all that wasn't enough, guess who else came out to greet me?
Maud.
She came squirreling it out of nowhere in swift, bright leaps.
She planted herself on the field in front of me.
That eerily human face of hers gazed up at me, and not with its usual expression of disdain, but instead with an elevated look of elation and wonder.
My Emperor!
Hail!
And she prostrated herself, belly to the ground.
Maud, no kidding, prostrate before me.
My mouth opened and closed several times.
Finally, I managed to say, Maud?
Maud, it's me.
Don't you recognize me?
She raised her black rat eyes to me.
I recognize you!
My Emperor!
Hell!
My mouth stopped opening and closing and just remained open.
I stood in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment.
I had to think before I spoke.
Was Maude sending me a message here?
Was she telling me I should try and pull off this hoax so we could escape with our lives?
That didn't make sense, did it?
The knights, Sir Hammerface, Sir Weird Child, Sir Cutie Pie, they were all kneeling to me too.
They weren't looking at me like, wait, that's Austin Lively, let's kill him.
They were looking at me like, oh shit, that's the Emperor, back from the dead.
And when I thought about it, I didn't actually feel all that much like I was Austin Lively.
That is, I was still me, but I was also not me somehow.
I was something else too.
Something more.
For one thing, I suddenly felt completely fine.
I felt great, really.
My aches were gone.
The scrapes on my legs weren't screaming pain into my brain.
They didn't even feel like they were bleeding anymore.
I had thought this was because of some healing property in the Emperor's outfit, but now I wondered if it might not be, well, something else.
Something more.
Because here was another thing.
It wasn't just me who was changed.
Everyone else looked different to me too.
Their faces, their whole beings.
For instance, the three knights.
When I had first seen them, they had looked like heroes.
Noble, confident, brave.
But now, now their features seemed pale and gray and sickly.
I saw shadows squirming over them like snakes.
So help me, I could feel shadows squirming inside them too.
I could almost hear their inner voices whispering with guilt and fear.
I looked from them to the prisoners, to Favian and his wife and his child, where they had fallen to their knees in front of their ogre guards, ogre guards who were also kneeling.
I could see, feel, hear a tortured sweetness in them that was more than themselves.
It seemed to me the very angel of their innocence was standing behind them.
I could actually see her there, her arms extended to embrace them, to comfort them through their coming martyrdom in the fire.
The vision overwhelmed me.
Holy smokes, I whispered to myself.
Then I looked at Maud.
Holy smokes, I said again.
Because she was changed too.
She was changed completely.
Still a beast, still a rodent, but her face, that woman's face, had lost its weirdness.
It had always seemed eerie and even disgusting to me, a human face on a rodent's body.
But now I saw that she was beautiful.
Really, truly beautiful.
It was the spell that was disgusting, the disjunction between her misshapen ugliness and the fabulous beauty that was only now apparent to me.
I looked from her to the crowd, the army and their followers.
Their faces too were crawling with shadows.
While there was no sound around me but the wind and the sea, I felt I could hear the conscience of the people as if the voices of their hearts were speaking straight into my soul, crying out for forgiveness.
This wasn't just the magic of the emperor's clothes.
It couldn't be.
This was me.
This was happening inside my mind.
Still my mind, but also now the mind of another.
Still Austin.
but somehow inhabited and informed by that far greater man than myself.
It was the emperor.
He was inside me.
Somehow, Anastasius had taken command of my soul.
The whole massive army, and the three knights and the three martyrs and the peasant woman at my feet, and the people sitting on the scaffolding of the crystal city in the distance.
All of them knelt where they were, waiting for me to respond to them.
And all at once, with a kind of certainty I'd never known before, more certainty than I had ever felt about anything, including what to have for lunch, I knew exactly what I had to do and say.
I took my hand out of the grasp of the peasant woman.
I touched her head, her rough, dirty hair.
Go on.
Go back to your family.
It's all right now.
Weeping, she beamed.
She rose and returned to her place in the crowd.
Then I looked to the three kneeling knights.
I could see, see, hear, and feel, their minds working out how to escape what they knew was coming.
My brows lowered.
I frowned an angry frown.
I spoke, and the sound of my own voice shocked me.
An echoing stentorian boom that must have reached even the people in the city far away.
The voice of command.
Sir Littleman, Sir Goodchild, Sir Hammer, rise.
They climbed to their feet unsteadily.
They stood trembling.
Sir Littleman's hand was cheating across his belt toward the hilt of his sword.
None of them could meet my furious gaze.
I continued.
The sentences came out of my mouth before they had even formed themselves in my mind.
It was the Emperor.
He was speaking through me.
Was it not I who brought you to Aona and the Crystal City?
Immediately, Sir Goodchild's face collapsed, streaked with tears of remorse.
Sir Littleman started to give some answer, some excuse, but I cut him off.
Did I not offer you lives of mercy, justice, peace, and joy here in Aona?
What kingdoms did Curtin offer you that were greater than those?
What blessings did I deny you that you would murder me and accuse my brother in order to steal his natural inheritance?
What happened next defied imagination.
Even my imagination, which was pretty expansive by now.
First, there was a collective gasp from the crowd, louder than the wind from the ocean.
Glancing at the people, I could see.
I could feel and hear their anguish of regret and anger.
They were ashamed of themselves for having followed the three knights.
And they were furious at the three knights for having deceived them.
The worst of it was, they had known all along they were being deceived, but they hadn't had the courage to speak out about it.
That made them even more ashamed of themselves, and that made them even angrier at the knights.
At the same time, I saw Favian, the emperor's brother, my brother now, I guess, leap from his knees to his feet with a stifled cry of joy.
In a glittering flash, his shackles fell from him, just magically dropped to the ground and dissolved.
He rushed to his wife.
Her shackles also fell away.
She turned on her knees to seize hold of her little boy, who was also suddenly free.
The sobbing child buried his face in her breasts.
She turned and clung to her husband and, also sobbing, buried her face against his loins.
And as the three embraced, I could see I alone could see the invisible angel of their innocence soar skyward in an open-armed hallelujah, celebrating that justice, justice like a rolling river, had returned to the broken land in the person of, well, me.
Well, sort of me.
But I had no time to take it all in, because at the same moment all this was happening, the three knights went for their swords and rushed at me.
I laughed out loud.
Strangely, when you see things clearly, as clearly as I could suddenly see, when you can see everything, including the inner hearts of men, it all becomes hilarious.
Tragically hilarious, yes, woefully absurd.
But it's funny all the same how people destroy themselves in the very midst of their blessings.
Because here's the craziest thing of all.
The three knights attacked me just as I was about to forgive them.
No, really.
Those were going to be the next words out of my mouth.
A pardon for all their sins, including my own murder.
I thought it would humble them and reform them to know I had set them free to start again.
But before I could speak, they drew their swords against me.
I didn't draw mine.
I didn't have to.
This was the part that boggled the imagination.
The moment the three knights drew on me, the moment their blades cleared their scabbards, the ground around them erupted.
The earth rumbled.
The dust flew.
And the people screamed in terror as the flaming dead rocketed shrieking out of the earth beneath their feet.
I knew them, the dead.
I had seen them on the bridge in hell, seen them rising in their agony and anguish, trying to pull me down into the lava of their torment.
I had fought them off and made my journey into the dark and into the light and back up the cliff face to life itself.
But Sir Littleman, Sir Goodchild, and Sir Hammer, they never stood a chance.
The flaming, shrieking skeleton seized them with hands that were dripping, fiery, rotten shreds of flesh.
The women in the crowd shrieked.
The men shouted out in horror.
The Flames of Reckoning00:02:55
The children looked on in wide-eyed amazement as the damned creatures swarmed the three knights, taking hold of their legs, hanging from their arms, crawling up their bodies to grab them by the throats and throttle them.
Sir Littleman tried to swing his sword, but a two-headed creature, half female and half male, coiled its flaming arms around his wrist and the bright blade fell.
The other two men, Goodchild and Hammer, were overcome instantly, engulfed in the blaze of the burning, rotting damned.
And as the rest of us stood, as even I stood, in gobsmacked revulsion, the creatures began to drag the knights down into the broken earth.
It must have taken mere seconds, but it seemed to go on a lifetime.
That's how dreadful it was to watch.
As the knights struggled and shouted, the flaming corpses pinioned their limbs and held them helpless and pulled them inch by inch into the dirt.
The knights' feet and legs went down so they were half buried, trapped, unable to escape.
Then their struggling torsos were hauled under to their necks so that only their heads remained in the free air.
That was the worst of it.
As they realized there was no hope for them, all three began to let out pitiable, high-pitched shrieks.
Shrieks that almost instantly were smothered and muffled as they were drawn down even further and the dirt poured into their mouths.
At last, only their staring, pleading eyes remained.
And then these also were gone.
There was nothing left but a cloud of dust and the lingering stench of death and damnation.
For a second or two, I could only stand and gaze at the spot where the nightmare had taken place.
Strangely, even though they had murdered the emperor, murdered me, I mean, I pitied them.
It hurt my heart to know where they had gone and to know there was no time there so their pain would never pass away.
Then, after a while, I noticed the silence surrounding me, silence punctuated by whimpering and tremulous sobs.
I raised my eyes.
The people had fallen on their faces.
All the creatures had.
Even the ogres were prostrate, their fat bodies quivering as they buried their noses in the dirt.
Even the brave centaurs were groveling, their hoarse forelegs crossed over their human heads as if to protect themselves from a coming blow.
Only Favian, my brother, remained on his feet, clutching his kneeling wife to him as she clutched her child.
Our eyes met his and mine.
He nodded at me and smiled a grim smile.
I turned to the frightened masses.
Power Revealed00:15:41
I thought to myself, Woof!
This is a lot of power here.
I better not screw this up.
But that was Austin speaking.
The emperor in command of my soul was not at all afraid.
I raised my voice again so that the whole crowd could hear me, the crowd and the city, and for all I knew, the entire world.
Be of good cheer.
But then that didn't seem strong enough, and so louder I added, Rejoice!
Rejoice!
All is forgiven.
All is well.
The people's transformation was instantaneous.
In a second, their palpable fear turned to celebration.
All across the vast field, even to the scaffolding of the Crystal City, the people were on their feet again, raising their fists to heaven, cheering, embracing one another, weeping with joy.
It made me smile to see it.
And now I turned to Maud.
My old friend had risen from the dust.
She sat there, rodent-like, but erect.
Her expression was one I'd never seen on her face before.
Elevated, serene, and proud.
I wanted to ask her if she knew I was here, if she knew I, Austin, was sharing this body with the emperor.
But I was not in control of what I said, and the words that came out of me were his, not mine.
You, squirrel girl, I spoke to her softly, but my voice carried above the cheering all around us.
You have done well.
By imperial decree, I remove the spell from you.
She blinked her black eyes, surprised.
But it was Natani who put this spell on me!
Doesn't he have to remove it?
Damn it, girl.
Who's the emperor here?
You or me?
She actually hesitated before she answered, which made me laugh and shake my head.
Ah, Maud.
You are, she finally said.
You are the emperor!
Good answer.
I reached out my hand and touched her eerie head.
Then I stepped back to watch what happened.
Her transformation was as beautiful to see as the end of the nights had been horrific.
Something in the air around her seemed to shatter.
Some dark and crawly barrier that had held her in her twisted shape.
It cracked to pieces like black glass.
A golden glow surrounded her instead.
A sparkling glow that took the shape of a woman.
She rose into that shape like coming home.
And in a moment that seemed filled with silent music, she stood before me.
A lithe, lovely, spright-like young lady, with a look of such mischief and intelligence in her suddenly blue eyes, it made me laugh again.
For a moment, she was naked, her skin all pink and pale.
The shape of her was so slender and perfect that the sight of it filled me like some sort of wine.
A moment later, and the remains of the golden glow sprinkled down over her blonde hair and clothed her in a blindingly white shift that followed the gentle curves of her form.
If I'd known you were that good looking, I'd have been nicer to you when you were a rat.
She rolled her eyes but smiled.
I turned from her to the vast, celebrating crowd.
Some were dancing now.
Some sat on the ground and wept.
Some clung to the people they loved.
Some stood and cheered.
My heart was full, full of joy and sorrow, confusion, and a grim purpose.
I glanced at the new improved Maud.
She was looking down at herself, turning this way and that, admiring her own beauty.
Yo, I said.
She looked up, startled.
She blushed.
This way.
I looked to Favian.
Come, brother.
He disentangled himself from his wife.
I walked toward the Grand Pavilion.
These two followed me, Favian and Maud.
I paused at the tent door.
They gathered with me there.
I took one last glance at the enormous revel.
Let them rejoice tonight.
In the morning, we go to war.
I stepped through the tent door.
And like that, I was on the front path of the Orozgo Institute, the mountains before me, the rearing pile of the madhouse at my back.
What a shock that was, that sudden change, not just from Aona to L.A., but from Emperor to Austin.
I stood and reeled, unsteady with surprise.
Ever since I'd read the Queen's book, Another Kingdom, I had been in control of my transitions.
I could change a door into a passageway from one world to the other, or I could will the passage closed and stay where I was.
But not this time.
This, this fingersnap of a metamorphosis from one world to another, from one being to another, had been completely without will and without warning.
I was there.
I was him.
And suddenly I was just here, just me, the way it used to happen when all this started.
My mind swam, but I thought I understood.
It was because of the emperor.
It was because Anastasius was taking over my life.
In that sense, at least, I was right back where I had been when I first walked through the door in the Edison building on the Global Pictures lot.
I was completely out of my own control.
Which is not to say things were the same as they were then.
Oh no.
They definitely weren't.
I found that out when, in my stunned state, in an effort to reorient myself, I looked back over my shoulder at the madhouse door where Hillary Bain was standing.
I let out a high shout of disgust and fear.
There was a thing clinging to her, a reddish, squirming creature.
I saw it with a sort of double vision so that, at one level, the woman was still as she was, a squat, apple-cheeked bureaucrat with a curly red dew and a thin forced smile.
But at another level, which I could also see, she had this slimy, pinkish reptile wrapped around her, its claws sunk in her bosom and its teeth buried in the side of her neck.
Its fat body pulsed and glowed as it sucked the substance out of her.
And she gaped at me as if pleading for relief, her face a mask of torment and dread.
Revolted, I adjusted my consciousness so that the awful vision faded away.
But I could still sense its reality.
I could not unknow that it was there.
I turned away, my gorge rising.
I had to swallow hard to keep from puking on my own shoes.
My legs were wobbly under me as I continued walking away from the asylum.
I headed for the Priest of Death's black truck.
My truck now.
I climbed into the cab and drove the hell out of there, tires screaming and kicking up dust.
I knew where I had to go.
It had come to me like a deduction, but to be honest, I couldn't tell if it was my own brilliant reasoning that worked it out or the emperor whispering into my mind.
All through the drive, I felt that confusion.
What part of me was him now?
What part of me was still me?
I wasn't sure anymore.
But when I came down out of the desert, back into the city, when I saw people on the sidewalk near the shops in Malibu, I realized with a sickening sense of vertigo that what I had seen when I looked at Hilary Bain was not a one-time deal.
He, Anastasius, was inhabiting my mind now, and with just the slightest shift of awareness, I could look through his eyes and see a whole other level of reality all around me.
Ordinary people, just walking by, had monstrous creatures crawling all over them, clinging to them, sucking at them, worming under their skins.
I could make myself stop seeing these hideous soul leeches, but I couldn't make myself stop knowing about them.
And just the knowledge that they were there, all around me, on the street and in the cars going past, made me dizzy and nauseous.
Not everything I saw was awful.
Now and then there were beautiful creatures moving among the people too, creatures like that angel of innocence I had seen hovering over Favian and his family.
Now and then I saw whole multitudes of gorgeous beings in the air and in the light, at one with the air, at one with the light, so that they were almost invisible even when I caught sight of them in their radiant presence.
One old codger I noticed pushing his walker across a mini-mall parking lot, moving from a battered old Chevy to the door of a bodega, was actually melded completely with one of these angelic presences.
Or maybe he was an angel himself only posing as a man.
It was impossible to tell.
But mostly, whichever way I turned, it was a nightmare.
The whole sweet city was infested.
It stank of fear.
It echoed with silent cries of anguish and despair.
All this surrounded me, a revolting blur of sights and smells and strangled voices as the priest's black truck barreled over the open lanes of the coastal highway.
I pressed the gas pedal down, sped on, eager, desperate to get away from him.
It was unbearable.
I made my way to sunset and from there into the hills.
The truck went grinding up and up over the city until I came to the gate of Orozgo's house.
I expected trouble here, but the gate just swung open and on I drove, up the dirt path to the ranch mansion.
It felt too easy.
I wondered if maybe the riflemen were fooled by the fact that I was driving the priest's truck.
Maybe they thought I was my own assassin coming home.
But that wasn't it.
Hilary Bain had phoned my brother from Crazyland.
They knew this was me.
In fact, the moment I parked and stepped down from the cab, I was surrounded by aggressive men in black, their rifles couched against their hip bones.
I had to blink back the vision of the soul leeches perched on their shoulders, wrapped around their necks or plastered over their faces with tentacles reaching down their throats.
I had to stop seeing the expressions of agony and despair on their underfaces.
But I couldn't stop knowing the truth.
With the circle of killers moving with me like a second self, I went up the path to the front door.
I was received there by Killer Jeeves, the butler with the bulge under his jacket.
I'm here to see Orozgo.
He either sneered a murderous sneer at me or cried out for help in pitiable desperation from beneath the giant spiked snake that was slowly forcing its way under his flesh.
God, I thought.
God, is the whole world a horror show?
There were no angels here on the mountaintop.
That was for certain.
I followed the butler-assassin down a hall.
We passed a mirror.
With a jolt of fear, I turned to see myself.
Were these leeches crawling over me as well?
If they were, I couldn't see them, thank God.
I couldn't even see my own face clearly.
It had somehow become unfocused, blurred, as if I were no longer wholly myself.
It was very, very weird.
We passed into the living room.
Most of the guests had gone, all those muck-amucks and poo-bahs who had gathered for the death watch.
There were only about four or five of them remaining on the patio outside.
They were all men.
They were all drinking sparkling wine from sparkling flutes.
They were all laughing together at some joke one of them had made.
And also, at the same time, on that other level only I could see.
They were all shrieking in hellish agony as the indescribable succubi sank their claws into them and drew the souls out of their flesh, atom by atom.
One of the men was Solomon Vine.
After what I witnessed at his party, I did not think I could ever feel pity for such a creature.
But seeing him from the emperor's perspective, I did.
I could have wept for what was happening to him right in front of the emperor's eyes.
Where was my brother, though?
Where were my parents?
I noticed their little corner with its leather throne was empty.
The sight sent a chill through my already chilly heart.
As the gentleman's gentleman slash murderous goon escorted me out of the living room, led me down the hall toward Orozgo's double doors, I had an intimation of what I was about to see.
Again, was it a deduction or an inspiration from my inner anastasius?
Again, I didn't know.
The butler opened the double doors.
I moved to the threshold and looked in.
What I saw in the bedroom then, it was an epic tableau of horror.
Orozgo was dying.
I had arrived just in time for the end.
I saw the scene in its multiple realities for only an instant.
Then I had to make it stop.
I couldn't bear it.
No one could have.
If I had known when I was being digested into the serpent of nothingness, if I had known what the creature looked like, really looked like when you saw it straight, I don't believe I would have ever found the will to break away.
I think the very hideousness of the creature would have sapped my determination.
I think I would have despaired to know reality contained such a thing.
And look, look what it had made of Orozgo, that once mighty man.
I couldn't describe it if I wanted to.
I don't want to.
The puny, shriveled remains of him lay visible in the belly of the beast that pulsed and thrashed in an ecstasy of well-fed satisfaction atop the bedcovers as it consumed the last of him.
My brother stood at the foot of the four poster, coldly gazing down at the disaster.
My father stood muttering to the left of him.
My mother stood on his right, straight as a blade.
And the thing that had hold of my brother defied imagination.
And the things my parents had become.
My guts curdled at the thought that they had made me.
There was almost nothing left of the human beings they must once have been.
There was a doctor there too, a man, and a new nurse, a woman.
They were watching Orozgo's life signs on a beeping meter.
The nurse was checking the flow of a drip that was running into the billionaire's arm.
Both of them were crawling with larva-like leeches.
Dreadful.
All of this I saw for a single second.
Then I made myself stop seeing it.
Only the stench of the truth remained in my nostrils.
A Single Second00:12:38
And the nausea remained.
And the whispered cries of agony that filled the room until they were indistinguishable from the hum of silence, these two remained in my memory.
My brother turned to me.
At first, his large, handsome face, with its swept-back golden hair and his golden Viking beard, seemed a mask of exultation.
Well, no wonder.
The whole network of persuasion and control that Orozgo had murdered into being here and all around the world was about to fall completely under his command.
But when he looked at me, his expression changed.
He narrowed his eyes, as if he weren't quite sure what he was seeing.
Could he sense the emperor within me?
I didn't know.
He stepped away from the foot of the bed, away from the unimaginable horror of Orozgo's demise.
He stepped toward me.
He peered at me closely.
What?
Why are you looking at me like that?
I shook my head.
How could I tell him that I could see him being devoured where he stood?
He misinterpreted my silence.
You think you've gotten away with something?
Our eyes locked.
I got away from your assassin.
I know that.
He died screaming, Richard.
The next one won't.
Or the one after that.
God, you're my brother, you jackass.
You're my big brother.
Don't you remember who you are?
His mouth twitched as if the words stung him.
How many times did I warn you?
How many chances did I give you, Oss?
Did you think this was a game?
Did you think you were a hero in a movie?
I heard my father mutter softly to himself.
Not a game.
Oh no.
Not a movie either.
My mother hushed him.
For a moment, pity for my family rose up inside me.
I gestured toward my brother's neck.
The words rose to my lips.
Look at that thing on you, man.
Look at what it's doing.
Save yourself, you stupid schmuck.
Nothing's worth this.
Not all the wealth and power in the world.
But what was the point?
He wouldn't have believed me.
Even I didn't want to believe me.
Even I wanted to believe the things I saw were imaginary.
Well, they were, I guess.
They were in my imagination, I mean.
But the imagination is an organ of perception, like the eye.
These horrors were real in some form or other.
I averted my gaze.
Get out of my way.
I need to talk to Orozgo before he's gone.
Richard didn't move at first, but then Orozgo made a noise.
Half a whisper, half a moan.
The shriveled remnant of him said, Austin.
Richard blinked.
He stepped away.
He made a harsh gesture at me with one hand.
Go on.
I moved past him, past my parents, to the far side of the bed.
I looked down at what had been Orozgo's face.
I forced myself not to see the serpent devouring him, but the knowledge that it was there turned my guts to ice.
Orozgo stared up at me, his eyes enormous.
His voice was a death rattle, a long, gasping sigh.
All real, he whispered in his despair.
I nodded.
Yes.
He gulped in air.
Help me, Austin.
Weirdly, I wanted to.
I don't know why, but I did.
How many times had this greedy, miserable bastard tried to exterminate me?
And yet, my hand lifted as if I could pull him from the belly of the nightmare that was digesting him.
I couldn't.
I cast a glance down over the bed covers.
The papers that had been there, the drawings of curtain, were all gone.
Then I saw they were stacked up on the bedside table next to me.
The one on top was a sketch of curtain.
The wizard's image stared up at me.
I could sense his malevolence, as if he were really there.
The flower.
The picture you drew.
I pushed the top sketch aside.
There was another sketch of curtain beneath that one, and another beneath that, all of them glaring at me.
I pushed those aside too, and the rest of the sketches, until I found the one sketch I was after.
The sketch of the flower.
I pulled it out, held it up so Orozgo could see it.
This one.
It's a carnation, isn't it?
I thought it was a rose, but it's a carnation.
The forest is all one tree, the mad girls had told me in the asylum.
Plant the carnation in the earth beneath.
I still had no idea what that meant.
But I knew, or the emperor had told me, that this was the carnation I was looking for.
Orozgo whispered something up at me, but I couldn't make it out.
I hated to lean closer to him, knowing what was squirming there on the bed, but I forced myself to do it.
What?
Amadis.
I shook my head.
I heard the word this time, but what sense did it make?
Amadis?
What does that mean?
What does that have to do with the carnation?
I thought, if I called him, if I confessed to him, maybe.
Confess.
To Amadis.
It's a person?
I pointed at the scratchings underneath the flower.
And you were going to call him.
Is this his phone number?
Is that what this is?
I couldn't do it.
I was afraid.
So many dead.
Yes, I understand.
You were going to confess to Amadis, but you were afraid of the consequences.
You didn't want to face the consequences.
But now, oh God, oh God.
This.
Yes.
His body stiffened.
He drew a violent breath, wheezing loudly.
The doctor came forward eagerly with the eager nurse beside him.
As if on cue, the beeping meter that was measuring Orozgo's pulse stopped beeping.
It let out a loud tone.
This was the end.
I glanced up at my brother.
His blue eyes were blazing with triumph.
He could barely keep the smile off his lips.
My father was muttering rapidly, working his fingers in front of him as if he were some sort of mantis.
My mother actually rubbed her hands together with anticipatory glee.
I grimaced.
My stomach roiled.
What a crappy way to die, even for Orozgo.
The meter kept screaming until the doctor switched it off.
I folded the sketch of the flower in my hand and slipped it into the rear pocket of my jeans.
As my family pressed eagerly around the bed, as they waited eagerly for the doctor to pronounce the final word, I shouldered past them.
I walked to the bedroom doors.
The butler, Killer Jeeves, was still there.
He blocked my way.
I saw him glance past me, looking to my brother for instructions.
I looked at my brother, too.
Richard lifted his eager eyes from Orozgo's corpse, just long enough to shake his head.
Whatever they were going to do to me, they wouldn't do it here.
The butler-slash-assassin stepped aside, and I walked out of the room.
Just as I crossed the threshold, I heard a rumbling sound behind me.
I caught a rising smell, horrible.
I remembered that stench.
I remembered it coming off the lake of fire.
I remembered it lingering in the air after Littleman, Goodchild, and Hammer had been dragged into the earth.
I hurried out of the room.
I did not look back to see what happened next.
Barreled down the hall.
I had to get away from that house.
It was like being stuck at the bottom of a pit of serpents, drowning in serpents like a rising serpent sea.
When I stumbled out the door, I sucked in the fresh spring air as if I'd just fought my way to the surface.
I jogged down the front path to the black truck, climbed into the cab in blind haste.
My vision blurred as my eyes filled with tears.
Were they tears for Orozgo?
I didn't know.
Maybe they were.
He had done every evil thing, and yet my heart was heavy for him.
No one deserved what had happened to him.
Not even he deserved it.
If I had had the power, I would have saved him in the end.
I needed to get out of here, go somewhere, sit and gather my thoughts.
But when I glanced through the window to the west, I saw the sun descending toward the horizon and remembered.
I couldn't rest.
Jane's time was running out.
I had to get to her.
I hit the ignition with an unsteady hand, drove down the rough road, the truck bouncing and rocking.
I thought someone might stop me for stealing the priest's vehicle, but the guards were all on their calm devices, spreading the word of Orozgo's passing.
No one seemed to care what I did.
The gate swung open for me and I barreled through.
I sped away a mile or two before I finally pulled over.
Then I sat behind the wheel, panting.
I thought I was going to be sick.
I thought I was going to go mad.
How could I live in this world?
Looking through the emperor's eyes, seeing the hideous things he saw.
It was more than a merely human mind could tolerate.
More than my mind could tolerate anyway.
But time, time, time was passing.
Jane was behind bars, helpless, the killers coming for her.
I could not afford to go crazy now.
I pulled the sketch of the flower out of my pocket, unfolded it, studied it.
I took out my phone.
My hand was shaking so badly now, I could barely read the numbers scribbled beneath the image, barely managed to punch the numbers into the keyboard.
I don't know who I thought I was calling.
The ideas running through my mind were lunatic and hysterical.
Arozco had said he had wanted to confess to Amadis, so I had some loopy thought that Amadis was a priest, Father Amadis of the Order of the Carnation, you know, like in some fantasy novel or some video game.
A white-bearded sorcerer in a starry cap who would kill all these evil reptilian leeches with a blue cloud of magic.
Something like that.
I was losing my mind, in other words.
If the things I was seeing were real, it was more reality than I could handle.
The phone rang once.
A man answered.
LAPD, Detective Carnation.
Okay, I wasn't expecting that at all.
I didn't know how to reply.
I just sat there, holding the phone, blinking, blinking and thinking, I know that voice.
It was the voice that had called me to warn me that Jane was in trouble, that she was going to be murdered in her cell.
I had recognized the voice when I heard it then too, but I couldn't remember from where.
I still couldn't.
How had he known to call me?
Why had he called?
Detective Carnation, this is Austin Lively.
There was no answer.
Not a word.
I could hear the detective breathing on the other end of the line, but there was nothing else.
I opened my mouth to ask if he was still there, but then I hesitated.
Another thought came to me.
Another deduction slash inspiration.
Detective's Silence00:01:11
What I mean is, this is the Emperor Anastasius.
And still, no answer.
Just a long, long pause.
Then, finally, the detective spoke again.
My Emperor.
Hail.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the Secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 14, Emperor Mode, was directed by Jonathan Hay.
Produced by Austin Stevens, Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.