Austin, now the emperor, returns to Galiana after slaughtering Curtin’s undead eunuch army in a blood-soaked massacre, his forces’ victory tainted by moral ambiguity as he debates mercy amid war’s brutality. His army transforms barren lands into lush fields, then marches on Eastrum, where a failed pardon offer sparks battle—Cambitis dies protecting the peace, but centaurs and trolls breach the gates, igniting chaos. Inside, Austin duels Lord Iron, only to face Curtin’s possession, trapping the wizard in a collapsing tower as the city burns. Victory comes at a cost: his humanity erodes further, leaving him soaring above the ruins, a conqueror with no clear path forward. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
We're almost finished.
You remember now.
Some of it.
More of it.
Everything is going to be all right.
All right?
All right.
All right.
So, in our last exciting episode, the fantastically heroic Austin slash emperor had just broken the fabulously sweet and beautiful Jane out of prison and was then hurled back into another kingdom where he found himself in a forest full of dead men.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 17, Return to Galeana.
I stood in the forest, lost among the dead.
I had not thought there could be so many.
They lay like discarded dolls beneath the trees, their pudgy bodies slashed and bloody, their strangely samey faces staring up into the lacework of the high branches and the gray white sky.
They had lost their lives in so many ways.
Some had been dismembered, some disfigured, some nearly skinned.
Some were mashed together so that they seemed one body made of several.
Others had been burned and were still burning.
Some had been crushed and others pierced a hundred times and some seemed half devoured.
Some were nearly buried in the dirt and some lay sunk in mud and water and some were set atop the surface of the fallen leaves.
The trees bowed and whispered above them, moved and swayed while they lay there still.
There must have been thousands of them.
I looked around me dully.
I barely understood where I was or what I saw.
My battle with the horrors of the reality beneath the tower had left me shaken.
And I could not stop thinking, thinking, wondering, and worrying about Jane.
Was she all right?
Was she even alive?
Had Carnation escaped with her in his van, or had the police caught up with them?
And even if they had gotten away, and even if she was alive, would she ever recover from what she'd seen?
Or would she go mad, knowing what the world was made of?
The questions ran through my mind as I stood beneath the trees, gazing over the endless expanse of the dead.
I was so disoriented, it was several moments before I realized I was not alone.
All around me, under the forest trees, there were other creatures, living creatures, lots of them.
They were moving slowly among the bodies.
They looked as exhausted as I felt and as dazed.
It was late in the day.
The light was failing.
Both the living figures and the butchered ones seemed slowly to be blending with the tangled depths of the woods as the woods were slowly blending with the darkening air.
I blinked and squinted to get a better look at who was with me.
I saw men and centaurs, trolls and fawns, infantry and knights in armor like me.
Like me, I noticed now, they were all covered in blood.
As I began to return to full awareness, I recognized some of them.
I saw Favian, the emperor's brother, his stained sword hanging loosely from his hand.
I saw the great Yeti, the fur around his claws dripping with red.
I saw soldiers like Spartans gathered around their bearded king, and I saw he was King Cambitis of Menaria, Queen Elinda's father, the not altogether wise.
I began to understand.
In Emperor mode, I could cross dimensions not only between LA and the Eleven Lands, but through space and time as well.
That's how I had gotten Jane out of the tower.
And now, I had returned to the war against Curtin, but not where I had left it.
As I stood with my army in the Forest of the Dead, I slowly pieced together what had occurred in the time since I had been back in Los Angeles.
After my cavalry had defeated the Red Army in the Battle for the Skies, we had flown on to the Yeti camp to rest.
Seeing the Emperor return to them, the Yetis welcomed us with one of their savage celebrations.
And in the hungover aftermath, many of them, including the great Yeti himself, had asked to join the fight to restore the Galeanan throne.
We waited with them for our infantry to catch up with us.
Their numbers had grown as well.
As they, the infantry, were marching to meet us, the men of the Eleven Lands had left their hearths and families, picked up what weapons they could find, and fell into the ranks alongside them.
When we all set off again, we were a mighty force, a sky full of horsemen winging majestically above, a vast sea of infantry spread out over the land below.
We proceeded as one to Menaria.
There, we found the people frozen into statuary, waiting for the moonlight to free them from Curtin's daily curse.
But I, the emperor, I didn't need the moon.
Curtin had worked his will on their corrupted minds.
The very presence of the emperor among them set those minds free.
They melted into flesh and blood and joined our army.
The curse of stone was over.
On we marched and on we flew.
When we reached Edemond, I descended from the sky into the forest to search for Maud's lover, Natani, in the lake.
But the eunuch zombies were waiting for us, an entire nation of them.
They attacked us in the woods.
What followed was an awful massacre.
Being eunuchs, they were flabby as pudding, easy for my soldiers to cut down.
But being zombies, they would not stop coming at us even as we sliced them to pieces.
Nothing would convince them to drop their weapons and surrender.
We were forced against our will to butcher them like cattle before a feast.
We turned the forest into a charnel house, and still they kept coming and coming.
So it was I returned from Los Angeles to find myself standing dazed amid the final results of the butchery.
I sighed to see it.
King Cambitis stepped up beside me.
He towered over me.
He lay his hand on my shoulder.
Never mind, lad.
It's only justice.
They slaughtered their own women, remember.
Curtin convinced them that a world without women would make an easier life for the men.
No females to defend, no children to feed.
A country without consequences.
It wasn't we who killed them then.
They destroyed themselves.
I gave another deep sigh.
I suppose we will have to try to believe that.
My eyes, still moving dully over the carnage, now came upon a little joyful spark of life.
Maud.
She was standing in the darkening green of the deeper forest, well away from the battlefield, off where I had sent her before the fight began.
She was too far away for me to see her expression clearly, but I knew her well enough that I could read her body language.
She was all eagerness and impatience, waiting for me to join her.
Girlish with anticipation, girlish as she had never been when she was in rodent form.
The sight of her cheered me after all the killing.
There were too many men in this forest, too much death.
Find a place away from the corpses and make camp, I told Cambitis.
My emperor.
I walked heavily beneath the trees to where Maud waited.
She was turned away when I reached her, gazing off into the woods.
The light of the falling sun speared through the low branches in brilliant white beams, but shadows were falling from the treetops, and dark green evening was moving in on every side.
Maud heard my footsteps on the dead leaves.
She glanced over her shoulder at me.
I noticed again how pretty, impish, and intelligent her face looked now that it was no longer stuck on the head of a squirrel.
You look weary, my emperor.
I shook my head heavily.
The things I've seen, Maud.
On the earth and under it.
So much blood and evil.
It's tiring.
She made a sympathetic face and touched my armored shoulder with a small white hand.
But she was too much in love to give a damn that life was tragic.
Boo-hoo, right?
No, no, I didn't mean that.
I'm sorry.
It's just...
I silenced her by lifting her hand from my armor and bringing it to my lips.
Let's go find your guy.
She ran ahead of me like a child, a Maude I'd never known.
These were her home woods, and she was sure-footed and swift in them, even as the light failed.
As I picked my way behind her, I scanned the tangled webwork of the forest depths.
Last time I had been here, this was called the Children's Forest.
It had been haunted by the ghosts of children the women had not lived to bear.
It seemed those ghosts were gone now.
At least, I didn't see any.
We went on.
Night fell.
Maud's white robe seemed to gleam in the darkness up ahead of me.
I followed after it.
I saw her reach the edge of the lake.
The trees were sparser here around the water.
The moon had risen now, a full moon, and the silver light of it streamed down over the crowns of the high pines.
As I walked on to catch up with Maud, I saw her kneel down by the lakeside.
She began to speak passionately into the moonlit ripples.
I came near.
I could see Maud's face, her profile, illumined by the silver glow that filled the clearing.
I heard her murmuring.
I couldn't make out the words, just the tone of eagerness and affection.
It made me smile after all the grim eunuch killing.
She glanced up and saw me approaching.
Here he comes, she whispered to the lake.
She was brimming with excitement.
I stood above her, looked down over her shoulder into the water.
And what a shock.
I saw myself reflected there, but it was not myself.
I saw the haloed sword on my breastplate, the red cape gently fluttering in an evening breeze.
But the face.
It was not my face.
I gaped in surprise, but before I could get a good look at my reflection, Natani rose up from the depths and became one with the rippling surface, and my own image was gone.
He was a wan, narrow, scholarly young man, his face strained with grief.
But there was no mistaking the passion in his eyes, even now when they were made of water.
His voice gurgled up out of the lake.
My emperor.
Hello, Natani.
I promised I would bring her back to you.
Here she is.
A sequence of emotions rippled over the pale features.
He had recognized the emperor, I think.
But now he understood that I was also me, Austin, who had sworn to find the woman he loved and return her to him.
Some understanding seemed to come to him as I watched.
But because he was a scholar, he had to find some explanation for what he understood before he knew how to react to it.
At last he said uncertainly, You did.
You did promise.
And you were as good as your word.
And now I suppose you'd like to come out of that lake.
Get yourself a pair of arms to put around your girl and so forth.
A fresh zephyr passed over the lake's surface and his image dissolved into the water's agitation.
Then the lake stilled and he was there again.
My emperor, he said in the mournful tone I remembered from our last meeting, I'm afraid that isn't possible.
My curse is Curtin's curse, and only Curtain can remove it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maud smile.
That's how it works, is it?
It is.
Forgive me, Emperor, but I apprenticed under Laylo, the master magician.
I studied the magic arts deeply.
I know what I'm talking about.
I'm sure you do.
The shape-changing spell I put on Maud to save her from the slaughter of the women, that was only magic.
But Curtin, this, me, this is wizardry.
Curtain is a wizard born to power.
His curses cannot be reversed but by his own hand.
Anything else would defy logic.
It would defy science.
It would defy all the rules of...
Does he ever shut up? I asked Maud.
No, never.
He's always going on about something.
His books and so forth.
Well, at least it'll be a long marriage, even if it only lasts a day.
Ha ha, she said.
But then she also giggled, a musical sound.
Give Me Your Hand00:08:57
I liked her much better as a girl than as a squirrel.
I reached down toward the water.
Give me your hand, magician.
These are my lands now, and I make the rules here.
I am what wizards wish they were, and I am not beholden to them.
Give me your hand, and we'll defy logic and science both.
We'll defy the whole world, for that matter.
Believe me, friend, I've seen the world.
It's worth defying.
Give me your hand.
And still he said to me, But I've read all the books.
I rolled my eyes.
I love this guy.
I'm going to leave him in the lake.
Oh, for crying out loud.
Natani, give him your hand right this minute.
Well, he doubted me, but he loved her, so he would have done anything for her, even defy logic.
I saw the tension of effort come into his face at her command.
His little portion of the lake surged upward in a curling wave.
His hand rose within the rising water and came into mine.
And then the wave splashed back into the lake.
But the hand remained.
The hand and the arm.
And I drew him up, and all the rest of him came out of the water and stepped onto the shore.
Maud let out a woman noise that I will keep in my heart forever as a souvenir, something to look back on during my lesser nights among humanity.
She rushed into his arms and he embraced her, and I turned away because emperors, you know, must remain above the merely sentimental.
But I could see it now.
Imagine it, I mean.
I could imagine the whole affair.
the mischievous adventurous girl and the wand scholar in his study.
She with the life of the world inside her, and he with the knowledge of the world in his head.
It was a nice romance, a good love story.
They had my blessing.
What happened to all the children? I said after a while, speaking into the dark woods.
All those ghost children you saved from the massacre.
Are they gone?
When there was no answer, I glanced over my shoulder and watched them trying to pry their two faces apart.
It looked like it might take a crowbar to get the job done.
Yes, Natani finally said, pressing his girl tight against him.
I let them go when I heard you were coming.
I was afraid before, afraid that Curtin would take them if I released them.
But now I know they're free and with their mothers.
The mothers who would have borne them if they'd lived.
I nodded, looked away into the woods again, thought a while, glanced back.
That means this country is empty now.
Totally unpopulated.
You two have your work cut out for you.
Maud laughed into Natani's chest, and he might have blushed, but it was hard to tell by the light of the moon.
We three, Maud, Natani, and I, made our way to the camp in the town of Neufell.
King Cambitis had taken the army there to get them out of the forest and away from the slaughtered eunuch zombies.
I recognized the place when we came to it.
On my way to Iona, I had been drugged here, kidnapped on Curtin's orders and lowered into a cave full of dead women as a sacrifice to the great beast down there.
It was not a pleasant memory, not at all.
I felt no joy returning here, even as a conqueror.
When we came into the town's streets, we found the gutters lined with sleeping soldiers, centaurs mostly, but also ogres and fawns.
Cambitis had placed as many men as he could in the empty houses, barns, and shops of the place.
But the army had become so large at this point, many were forced to bivouac in the fields around and some, those most comfortable in the out of doors, had simply collapsed where they stood.
We had to tiptoe around the snoring bodies to reach the emperor's pavilion.
There were no celebrations tonight.
Everyone was too exhausted and depressed by the massacre.
We, we three, were exhausted too.
I sent Maude off to join the women and other camp followers and banish Natani to the command post in the tavern.
Maude was not happy with this arrangement and let me know it in no uncertain terms, but I held my ground.
I didn't want the first new child in Ejemon to be born out of wedlock.
It would set a bad precedent.
When they were gone, I went into my pavilion alone.
There, at last, my magic armor melted back into my body.
My cape and sword vanished.
I undressed and crawled onto my cot.
I was so tired, I thought I'd sleep right away.
But I lay awake a long time.
I thought about what I had seen in the lake.
My own reflection, but not my own.
My time in these lands, I realized, was coming to an end.
I stared into the moon-made shadows.
My mind was buzzing like a beehive, my thoughts swarming like bees.
This business of traveling through space and time disturbed me, not just because of the demon-infested under-territory I had seen beneath the tower, but also because of the way my life went on without me when I was gone.
It was troubling.
It meant, for instance, that I couldn't risk going home to check on Jane, to see if she was alive and well.
I had to stay here, here in this place in time.
I had to stay and see the war to its conclusion.
I was the emperor now.
I was more the emperor than I was myself.
How had this happened, I wondered.
Tired as I was, I tried to reason it out.
How had this change come upon me and what did it mean?
This place, this other kingdom, my story here, had been going on before I arrived.
Then, through reading a part of Yelinda's book, my consciousness opened to it.
I stepped through the door in the Edison building and entered my own life as it was being lived in Galeana.
That life ended when I fell off the cliffs of Aona and was crushed against the ocean.
I had died then.
I had descended into the realms of death.
I had decayed.
I had dissolved in the belly of the cosmic serpent.
You would have thought that would be the end of me.
But death was not always death in the 11 lands.
Why not, though?
Why wasn't it?
How had I come back?
The night was silent all around me, and I heard my own deep breathing as I lay on the cot staring into the moonlight.
I hadn't come back, I realized.
He had.
The emperor.
It was I who had descended into the realms of death, but it was he who had returned within me, bringing me with him as he did.
The life that I was living in this country was no longer really my life, but his.
And slowly, as I allowed him to take me over, I was beginning to vanish.
What then would happen to me when I was all gone?
I didn't know.
I only knew that without him, I would already be dead, in the ocean beneath the cliffs, or in the shallow grave beneath the aspens.
Without him, Jane would be dangling from a rope in her cell.
Without him, the demons of the underworld would be feeding on us both, maybe forever.
What then could I do but trust him?
It was nearly dawn before I closed my eyes.
Hey, this is Andrew Clavin.
We'll be back with another kingdom in just a minute.
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A Murmuring Awakening00:03:55
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And now we will return to another kingdom.
A low murmuring outside the pavilion woke me.
It was early morning.
I stepped out of my tent, clothed magically again in the emperor's armor, and saw a crowd of soldiers, centaurs and ogres, knights and camp followers, gathered at the end of the main street, at the edge of town.
They parted with bows and curtsies as I walked among them to see what they were staring at.
I came to the front of the crowd and stopped beside King Cambitis.
My lips parted and I heard myself give a little gasp of surprise.
The forest beyond the village had turned completely black.
I, I, Austin, had never seen anything like it.
The leaves, the branches, were draped in sable as for a funeral.
Even the ground, the woodland duff, was carpeted with darkness.
I, I, the emperor, I mean, understood what it was a moment before Cambitis spoke.
It's the dead birds.
They've come for the eunuchs.
As if that were their signal to arise, the blackness gave a tremendous flutter and up the dead birds flew.
A million of them, it looked like, wafting from the ground and from the branches and from the leaves, filling the sky like winged night.
The morning sun went out then shone again as they banked and wheeled off deeper into the forest.
Birds like vultures.
They had come for the feast we had prepared for them.
The world was made to live and die, Cambytis said, watching them.
I nodded.
It was.
Gather the armies.
We march for Galiana.
It was five days' march to Shadow Wood.
The winged cavalry flew slowly to let the infantry keep pace with us below.
I worried about supplying the now massive force.
Egimund had been in the midst of a false harvest when I came through last time.
But now the illusion had been lifted from the land, and it was revealed to be a Gothic country, as sear and waste as Galeana itself.
I worried we would not be able to find enough food for everyone.
I worried, but the emperor did not.
I had underestimated his power.
As we traveled, the dead land came to life beneath us.
Spring, then summer, then a rich ripe autumn seemed to follow one upon the other in mere moments.
Orchards sprang out of nothing and bore fruit.
The fields turned grassy green, and flocks of animals like sheep arrived to graze in them.
Water rushed into the dry ravines, sunlit and crystal clear.
From my high perch on the flying stallion, it was a beautiful thing to watch.
The green grass and the red fruit and the silver water springing out of the sear and colorless land, instantaneous and amazing, like a special effect in a movie, only real.
And there was still more magic when we reached the wood.
It was the evening of the fifth day.
The forest was growing mystic with new darkness.
As the cavalry landed and rode through the tree line with the great infantry following, music seemed to surge up out of the forest's invisible depths.
Creatures detached themselves from the intricate webwork of vines and branches and underbrush, so that they seemed almost to manifest out of the empty air.
Fawns on their panpipes, trolls with drums, naked nymphs rising like mist from the lakes and rivers, singing a haunting chorus like a living wind.
The thickening air was filled with fairies too, their rainbow lights hovering all around us, their naked bodies blurred by the humming shimmer of their gossamer wings.
Mystic Forest Darkness00:10:44
I ordered Favian to make camp.
I dismounted from the black stallion and continued on foot with only Maud, Natani, and King Cambitis beside me.
The woodland creatures continued to pour out of the evening, dancing attendance on us.
The rainbow clouds of fairies led us through the forest to the court of its king, Toritanio, and of Magdala, his queen.
They were waiting for us there, seated on their thrones of light by the great oak where I had first found my sword of armor.
Toritanio was a rotund Santa Claus of a monarch, with a great beard and red cheeks, a furred robe and a crown of leaves.
He rose to greet me and gave his hand to Magdala, a life matron made of moonlow, an incredibly grand and lovely being, and she rose too.
My emperor, they said, their voices in harmony with each other and with the music all around us.
They bowed their heads to me.
What a change it was since the last time I'd been here.
It had not been so long ago, but in a strange way, it had been forever.
Time did not work the same way in this kingdom as it did back home.
The months of forgetfulness I had spent in Hollywood were part of my memory and experience, but time had stood still here and waited for my return.
Plus the emperor, who almost second by second was becoming the more dominant presence within me, had been gone from these woods much longer than I had, and I could feel that too.
And there was also this.
I had been through so much and was so greatly changed.
It felt like years and years since I had stood before the forest king and queen, gormless and afraid.
But if they recognized that man, that Austin, within the poised and powerful emperor, they gave no indication of it.
I was not sure I recognized him myself anymore.
So I, I, Anastasius, hugged the king with the solemn ceremony and kissed the queen's silver hand.
Then the two looked past me at my companions.
They bowed to their fellow monarch Cambitus.
Then they turned to the two young lovers.
Turatanio's round and jolly face seemed to narrow for a moment with confusion, but Magdala's glowing white countenance grew brighter with her gentle smile.
Is it, said the king, astounded.
He stepped toward the impish girl in her white shift.
Is it Maud?
Maud fell to her knees before him, took his hand in both of hers and started weeping.
Look, the king said in wonder to his queen.
Look how beautiful she is.
He gave a deep laugh, really just like Santa, and beamed down at the crying girl.
What will I do without my squirrel spy, my brave and secret soldier?
Maud only just managed to answer.
I will always serve you, my king.
The moonlight queen moved to stand beside her husband.
We will not need spies and soldiers in this forest anymore.
These were free and peaceful woods under the good queen, and they will be free and peaceful woods again.
Yes, yes, that's right.
And who's this? Toratanio said, turning to look at Natani.
The magician dropped clumsily to his knees beside Maud, and she lifted her tear-stained face to the forest king, smiling and crying at the same time.
This is my Natani, she told him proudly.
Ah, you're Natani, of course, the great magician who saved the children of Egemond and sent us our brave squirrel.
Look who it is, my queen, Natani the Great.
No, Your Majesty, Natani mumbled, staring at the ground.
No.
Edgemond is dead, Your Majesty.
These two will be the father and mother of a new nation.
A new nation.
What do you think, Magdala?
A whole new nation from just these two.
She took his arm.
It's wonderful, my husband.
Fathers and mothers instead of soldiers and spies.
The world begins again in front of us.
The world begins again, said the king, nodding in wonder.
Now Magdala gestured toward the great oak, and the moonlight gathered there into a third throne, and then a fourth, this last a majestic cathedral larger than the others.
We should hold counsel, my lord.
Yes, yes.
What was I thinking?
I was so distracted by the return of our good friend the squirrel.
But here is the emperor.
We must hold counsel, of course.
The forest king and queen and King Cambitus and I, we all four settled into our thrones of light.
I took the cathedral, and Natani and Maud stood behind me to my left and right, each by a finial.
The creatures of the woods gathered in the evening trees around us.
The naked nymphs swayed mistily above the moonlit waters.
The fluttering fairies graced the air with colored lights.
All these together filled the woods with their strange music, a sound that was nearly the same as silence, and yet somehow soothed the soul.
What is the state of the country?
Until that moment, you might have thought Toritanio's face was sculpted into a permanent expression of convivial benevolence.
But in the next second, he looked as somber as he had seemed joyful the second before.
It is grim, my emperor.
Very grim.
All of Curtin's remaining forces have gathered within the walls of Eastrum and are holed up in the castle compound, preparing for the final fight.
They keep the citizenry imprisoned within the walls.
There is great hunger among them.
There are mass deaths.
Beloved pets are roasted over trash fires.
There is even cannibalism, according to my fairy spies.
Some of the citizens murmur against Lord Iron and plot to kill him, hoping thereby to win your favor.
But Curtin protects him, and the people are too afraid to act.
Afraid of Curtin?
Of you, my Emperor.
They are terrified of your justice.
I nodded.
I could understand that.
I remembered the streets of Galeana under Lord Iron.
The citizens had been reduced to gibbering demons, cheering as innocent men and women were tortured to death for being heretics and traitors.
I remembered the sickly smoke of burning bodies hanging in the middle-air, the stench of fear and envy and accusation.
Justice for Galeana would be an ugly business.
Toritanio inclined his head.
Justice is ugly.
God keep us all from the fate we deserve.
Yes, amen.
Cambitis spoke then with his kingly voice.
Perhaps if you were to issue a general pardon, a pardon to the whole city, the army included.
Then there would be no more reason for them to fear you, no more reason for them to remain loyal to Lord Iron and his wizard.
Curtin and his lord, you mean?
Yes.
Yes, that is what I mean.
I thought a moment, then inclined my chin.
I will consider it.
Mercy for the people and the armies maybe.
There can be no pardon for the lord and the wizard.
That would not be just.
No, but if you were to forgive the rest, the army, the whole city, they might well surrender, and there would be no more bloodshed.
But my emperor, said the moonlight queen, and then to Toritanio, may I speak, my lord?
Of course.
You are my Magdala.
Of course.
Would it be justice to let the people go?
It was they who chose to overthrow the queen.
They would have burned her at the stake if my husband had not cast her from this place into another kingdom, where she would be safe.
I thought of Queen Elinda, Ellen Evermore, hiding out in the tent city.
Safe, more or less safe, I guess, but homeless, too.
A homeless queen.
The people followed Ion of their own free will.
The army, most especially, was his.
May I speak, my emperor? said Maud at my shoulder.
Of course.
You are my Maud.
When we were in Iona, by the sea, we saw the army.
Your army.
How easily they were led.
They would have burned a child alive at the command of Littleman, Goodchild, and Hammer.
But look at them now.
You pardoned them, and they followed you, and have freed the nations.
Perhaps King Cambitis is right.
Perhaps it would be so with the armies of Eastrum, too.
Don't think of what they were, but what they could be with your forgiveness.
Bring justice where it will do good, and mercy where it will do good.
But that's no rule, Natani blurted out.
Who can follow such a rule?
Who has that wisdom?
Toritanio and Magdala and Cambitis and Maud and Natani all fell still and watched me, waiting for my decision.
The forest around us was full of silent music.
I rose from my cathedra, and the others rose.
I will think it through and do what can be done.
One way or another, come morning, there will be an end.
Another kingdom is coming to its epic conclusion, but that doesn't mean you have to stop enjoying it, because Book Two, The Nightmare Feast, releases as a novel in March.
Relive the greatest moments from Austin's clashes with Orosco's assassins and his struggle through Curtin's haunted mansion, all in glorious hardcover.
In the second book of the trilogy, Austin must traverse the Eleven Lands to find the Emperor and restore the Queen to her throne, all while trying to track down his kooky sister in California before Orosco's assassins get to her first.
Captain's Shock00:14:46
Pre-order it now on Amazon and dive back into the story on March 3rd.
And now, back to another kingdom, the final season.
If you had been a soldier on the walls of Eastrum at sunrise, you would have seen the golden morning fill the heavens from horizon to horizon, then spill down over a black and earthly multitude.
The Emperor's armies, my armies, now blanketed the country, surrounding the city on every side.
The ports and fields and forests all were ours.
I sat at the head of the legions, mounted on my stallion outside the main gate.
Cambitis was on his charger to the left of me.
Natani was on a stolid roan to my right.
Favian was nearby on foot, ready to lead the infantry.
I nodded to Cambitis.
He spurred his horse.
It was he who had suggested that I offer mercy to the people.
He had had the courage to insist that it would also be he who took the risk of approaching the city walls himself.
He rode forward slowly, unafraid.
His body was relaxed.
His kingly crown was glinting in the risen sun.
Six archers on the Eastrum ramparts trained their bows on his approaching figure.
Arrows knocked and hands on the bowstrings, ready to draw.
The captain of the guards stood beside them, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Even from where I sat, I could feel his tension and anger.
There was no chance he would accept our offer.
His heart was already at war.
The king's horse came to a stop before the city gates.
Cambitis held the reins loosely, and the charger nosed the dust, looking for grass to nibble.
The king lifted his eyes to the captain and spoke with quiet authority.
I am Cambitis, king of Menaria.
I have come to bring you a message from the emperor.
All in this city are fully pardoned, the people and the soldiers.
All.
All except the wizard and his lord.
They will face justice.
But all others who have transgressed will be forgiven.
All who are hungry will be fed.
We require nothing but your allegiance to the queen and the old disciplines of freedom.
Let wisdom reign and each man go his way.
Lay down your arms, accept the emperor's mercy, and avoid the destruction of you and your city.
To my right, astride his Rhone, Natani murmured, They will not do it.
This was a mistake.
We should not have listened to Cambytis.
One corner of my mouth lifted.
Yes, he is not altogether wise, but he was right this far.
We had to make the offer.
We had to try to avoid war.
But they will kill him now?
They'll try.
For a long moment, the captain on the wall did not reply.
An almost uncanny silence settled over both the city and my vast army.
Then the captain's face twisted with rage.
Here is Lord Iron's answer!
He gave a signal, and the archers on the wall drew back their bows, ready to riddle Cambitis with arrows.
I heard Natani gasp in fear beside me.
But before the archers could fire, my centaurs, hidden amidst my host by my command with crossbows ready, loosed their bolts.
The bodies of the six archers on the eastrum wall were suddenly bristling with shafts.
Their bowstrings twanged.
Their bows flew from their hands.
Their arrows sailed uselessly into the sky as they tumbled backwards and vanished behind the ramparts.
I saw the captain of the guards stiffen with shock.
Even at a distance, I saw his eyes go wide with understanding, rage, and fear.
I winked at Natani.
Well, we tried.
I lifted my hand.
I raised my voice.
I shouted the order.
Take the city!
The army surged forward.
We were by now so many, it was as if the very earth had come to life and thrown itself against the walls.
I led the cavalry up into the sky, and we were above the ramparts before the infantry reached the gates.
My trolls hurled bombs down on the guards below.
Loud explosions and red bursts of flame sent the soldiers on the wall toppling.
My knights, meanwhile, landed within the city.
Iron's mounted troops were ready for us and met us with a charge.
Horses squealed.
Swords clashed and rang.
Battle cries turned to screams of agony.
Blood and dust flew everywhere.
The deafening tumult of war surrounded us.
As the horsemen battled for the inner court, my trolls fought their way back toward the city gates, hurling their explosives as they went.
Huge blasts erupted.
Huge fires climbed up the entranceways.
Then all at once, the gates blew inward and my army flooded the city.
A tide of men, of centaurs, ogres, and fawns, and all the rest, came pouring into the streets.
Iron's forces fell back before the onslaught.
We chased them down, slaughtering any who tried to make a stand.
As I led the way into the streets, I saw the people, the citizens, cowering in doorways, alleys, and gutters.
Through the flying blood-spattered dust, I caught glimpses of their pitiful figures, starved to skeletons.
Men, women, and children, too.
Their ribs pushed through thin draperies of flesh.
Their eyes were huge in their sunken faces.
I remembered how they had turned on each other under Iron's rule of fear and slander.
Now they huddled in despair or ran in panic as their guardians and oppressors fell in a chaos of battle and death.
We fought street to street, littering the ground with corpses, riding our horses over the screaming wounded and the dead.
Flames flew up on every side of us as the trolls bombed the buildings, and the buildings burned.
Iron's cavalry was already destroyed, and now the foot soldiers were running in disarray as we charged after them and cut them down.
We broke into an open space, a plaza, the very plaza where I had once seen prisoners tortured and killed, while the citizens jeered them.
The dead had been stacked here like firewood and burned.
The ground was still covered with their remains.
The air still stank of rot.
This was Iron's legacy.
Looking for power, he had convinced the people that if they threw off the discipline of the wise queen's reign, the land would become an arcadia of equality.
Now I saw the ruins of that promised paradise burning around me.
Like every mortal Eden, it was littered with the dead.
I reined my stallion and my stallion reared.
Rising above the fight, with the black smoke of the burning city washing over me, I raised my sword and called to the nearest infantry.
Follow me!
Then I turned and charged out of the plaza and headed up the hill toward the castle compound.
The cavalry raced beside me.
The infantry with spears and swords came storming at my back.
We climbed the hill.
The city was in flames beneath us.
Above us, the castle compound rose, dark and formidable against the bright morning sky.
I led my forces into the old graveyard, a smog-draped field of slanted monuments.
As we raced through it, the headstones toppled under our horses' hooves.
The roofs of the catacombs collapsed.
The undertunnels opened.
The spirits of the imprisoned dead flew out of the black pits, shadows visible in the mist, they flitted free and vanished in the sunlight.
I took one quick glance around me as we raced on.
This was where Bethere had died in my arms.
My brave and beautiful revolutionary murdered by the husband who had betrayed her.
Iron.
Even in the feverish passion of our advance, I felt the talisman that hung around my neck grow hot against my skin.
Its heat seeped through me and became the heat of righteous anger.
I wished that Beth were here with me now to see her murder avenged, her nation freed, the queen she loved so well restored to her rightful throne.
I hoped there was joy in heaven as she watched my armies come.
We charged the compound.
The battle grew intense around the castle moat.
Iron had posted a large contingent of soldiers there.
He was hoping he could stop my forces before we reached him, hoping he could win the day without risking his own life in the fight.
He was not a coward, just a devil.
He sent others to do the bloodwork for him.
Iron's archers lined the far side of the water and filled the air above it with shafts.
My soldiers approached steadfastly under their shields, though many were pierced and went down screaming.
My centaurs fired back with crossbows, and the archers went down too.
And meanwhile, the infantry fought to build a trio of pontoon bridges across the moat.
At last, as the arrows flew, we breached the water.
But the worst was still to come.
The infantry charged across the bridges, and I led my cavalry above them in the air.
My trolls advanced with me, showering the enemy with incendiaries.
The bombs were powerful.
The bodies of iron soldiers flew out of the blasts in burning pieces.
But then, one of the devices hit the base of a tower.
The loud explosion shook the air.
The earth erupted, then collapsed.
A horrid stench blew up out of the blasted sewers.
It covered me even where my stallion winged above.
I heard an unnatural roar.
I realized what was coming a moment before it came.
I looked down in horror.
The massive shit monster that lived in the sewers beneath the dungeon rose up out of the earth and swarmed the fighting armies.
It was a nightmare slaughter.
The living shit covered the fighters where they clashed.
Without regard to whose men they were, it flowed into their open mouths and filled them like balloons until they burst in a hideous splash of animate excrement.
The sewer beast seemed to be everywhere at once, seething beneath the battle, lifting soldiers off the earth as they broke off their sword fights and tried to run for it, screaming.
I saw the bodies of men bursting and sinking, dead, into the living tide of dung.
For a moment, the abomination froze my brain, and I could not think what to do.
Then with a shout, I drove my stallion down into the thick of the stench.
Get behind him, I shouted to my trolls.
Force him into the moat.
Infantry, form up in front of him.
Lead him on.
The trolls rallied and brought their horses to the shit beast's back.
The soldiers lined up before it and retreated in good order over the bridges, drawing the thing toward the edge of the water.
The trolls began to harry the flowing brown mass with bombs and fire, driving it forward.
As I flew mere feet above the battle, gagging on the sewage miasma, I saw the shit beast flow into the moat and fill the water with the writhing crap of itself.
Burn it! I shouted.
The trolls rushed to the moat's edge, throwing incendiaries down at the thing as fast as they could.
The shit beast fought to flow free, but the soldiers lining the moat's far side forced it back into the ditch with spears and swords as the bombs exploded on top of it in orange and scarlet flames.
At first, it seemed the fire did no damage.
The flames seemed to dance harmlessly on top of the burbling manure as the creature roared.
It reached out of the pit and seized another soldier and another.
The men screamed and struggled and were filled with shit and burst and died in the creature's clutches.
And finally, finally, the flames took hold.
With a hollow thump that sent an unbelievable smell up to the very heights of the sky, the shit beast caught fire.
Its roar became a high-pitched shriek.
Its shriek mingled with the windy clamor of the flames.
It burned.
Then all in a moment, the beast exploded.
Pieces of flaming shit went flying through the air in all directions.
The remnants of the thing sank down into the moat's water.
With a cheer of victory, my armies raced across the bridges again and stormed the castle, cutting down Iron's army as they came.
That was the turning point.
My host flooded the compound and Iron's armies fled.
Flames flew out of the building's windows as the infantry broke down doors and went after the panicking defenders.
I turned my stallion and flew toward the highest tower of the castle, just above the moat.
It was there, there in the room at the tower's top, I had first stepped into Galeana.
It was there I knew I would find Iron waiting, there in his last refuge, the furthest point from the war.
I landed my horse by the moat and dismounted.
I made my way to the base of the high tower.
The door stood ajar.
I entered the stairwell.
There were no defenders left here.
They had all fled, trying to escape into the castle and the catacombs.
I could hear my forces battling them within, the clash of swords, the cries of battle, the shrieks of the wounded and dying.
I headed up the stairs to the room where I had found Lady Kata's body.
I thought back to that day as I took the flight two steps at a time.
Heard The Clashes00:16:27
I thought back on the man I had been then.
I could hardly find him in myself anymore.
I was almost all emperor now.
I wondered again what would become of Austin when the transformation here was complete.
I reached the top of the stairs.
I reached the heavy door to the tower room.
I pushed against it.
It was bolted from within.
I could hear a barricade of furniture rattling on the inside.
I raised my foot and felt some fresh energy flow into me.
I kicked out once.
The bolt shattered.
The door flew open.
The barricade splintered.
The splinters sprayed.
Lord Iron Netherdale was waiting for me in the center of the room.
I was surprised to find him there alone.
The last time we had fought, he had had curtains protection.
I could not land a blow against him because the wizard's magic deflected them all.
But now he stood before me solitary and erect, his sword in his hand.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, a handsome, stately fellow, a political being who knew how to present himself and was always aware of the impression he made.
He was dressed now for this final fight, not in armor, but in the finery of office, gilded clothing with a lining of fur, a purple sash across his chest, a family medallion gleaming on it, a black cape flowing.
When I stepped through the doorway, when he saw me there in my emblazoned armor, my own cape bright red, he took up a dueling stance, ready to do battle.
All around him, on the walls, torches burned in their sconces, illuminating the tapestries hung between them.
The medieval scenes of reapers and hunters and dancing gentlemen and ladies seemed to flicker to life in the flamelight.
Lord Iron glared defiance at me.
His voice trembled, but he spoke boldly.
I am not afraid to die, Anastasius.
Good, because I'm going to kill you.
The color left his cheeks at that, but he still managed to sneer.
He angled his sword at my face and I drew mine.
Then, with cries of fury, we launched ourselves at one another.
I was not prepared for what happened then.
I was the emperor and mighty beyond imagination.
I thought I would defeat him right away.
I was startled by his ferocity and prowess.
His eyes gleamed with unnatural intensity.
His blade flashed here and there with uncanny speed.
Wherever I tried to cut at him, I found him gone.
And when I thought I had an opening, he blocked me and knocked my thrusts and slashes harmlessly away.
He counterattacked with savage blows I could only barely parry.
We circled around the circular room, lit by the torchlight and by the pale beams of morning that fell through the windows.
The figures on the tapestries seemed to watch us as our blades clashed together, swung back and clashed again.
I leapt toward him and cut at his head with all my might.
He caught my blade on his and threw it back and sent me staggering.
He rushed in for the kill, and I kicked him at the waistline, shoving him away.
We paused a moment, breathless, sword tips touching in the air between us.
You think yourself noble because you want to put the people under a monarch's heel again?
This isn't a debate.
It's a sword fight.
This is for Bethere.
On guard.
You want to kill me because you slept with my wife?
Someone had to.
You miserable bastard.
Come on, Iron, enough talk.
I could hand you over to the hounds of hell, but I want to do this myself.
We'll do it then.
He rushed at me again.
Again, the little room rang with our two swords clashing.
Try as I might, though, I could not find a way into him, and his attacks were getting closer and closer to the mark.
I began to feel the first acid pools of anxiety gathering inside me, deepening into fear.
What was going on here?
Something was all wrong about this.
I was the emperor.
He was just a man.
I should have been able to defeat him easily.
But no.
Instead, I could feel myself tiring, while every time we rushed together, he was stronger than before.
If this kept up, the unthinkable was going to happen.
It was only a matter of time before he would kill me.
Sure enough, soon enough, the crisis came.
As I struggled to block a flurry of slashes so swift they were almost invisible, Lord Iron drove me against the wall.
My back slammed into the tapestry.
He pressed in.
I caught his blade on mine.
The two swords trembled together, edge to edge, flashing with the flamelight from the torch right beside me.
Our eyes met across our swords, and I was shocked to see the raging red power in the depths of his glare.
He pushed hard against me.
My muscles were beginning to weaken.
My arm buckled, and with a swift circular motion, Iron caught the edge of my weapon with his and flipped the sword out of my hands.
The blade twirled through the air and fell, clattering to the stone floor, right on the spot where Lady Kata had died, right on the bloodstain there.
Triumph flared scarlet in Iron's face.
He drew back for the killing blow with me pressed against the wall, defenseless.
Die, Anastasius!
He thrust the sword point at my breast.
I wheeled to the side, plucking the torch from the sconce.
His blade struck the wall behind me, throwing sparks.
I leapt forward and counterthrust, jabbing the flaming torch into his face.
His flesh sizzled as he fell back, screaming.
The stench of his burning skin reached me as his cheek bubbled and turned black.
By the time he pivoted to fight off my next attack, one half of his face was melted away to reveal the gray, blue, wrinkled countenance beneath, its single eye gleaming with hatred.
Curtain!
Of course it was.
I remembered how, back in Hollywood, I had seen the demons devour their prey from within.
There was hardly anything left of Arazga when he died.
My mother and father were likewise nearly gone, only fragments remaining of the people they'd been born to be.
So it was with Lord Iron Netherdale.
There was almost nothing left of him.
He was all Curtin now.
Curtin lived within him as the Emperor lived in me.
The wizard had taken him over and he was empty, the hollow image of a human being.
As that realization came to me, I understood why I had not been able to defeat him.
Curtin had only one power, the power he stole from other men's minds.
He wielded the weakness of their corruption against them.
He killed them with the self-consuming fire of their own hate.
And I hated Iron.
He had killed my Bethyray, my lovely girl.
I hated him.
The moment I spoke the wizard's name, he threw off his disguise.
It was an awful thing to see.
At the last second, I think Lord Iron realized what had happened to him, how he had been used and used up.
He was nothing now but a costume to be thrown aside.
What was left of his face contorted in a twisted grimace of pain and despair.
His howl of agony became a shriek of terror as Curtin seized his body by the chest and tore him asunder like a rag.
And still, still, Iron was shrieking as he fell in pieces to the stone floor.
His shredded flesh became flame.
The flames sank down into the stone and out of sight.
But still, still, I could hear him shrieking.
Those long, long, fading screams.
The wizard stood before me unmasked, a shriveled little man with a wizened little face, his beady eyes sunk deep within its folds.
His gray tuft of hair quivered on his forehead.
His gray tuft of beard trembled on his chin.
That robe he always wore, that starry robe of liquid night, flowed out around his shriveled frame.
He bared his teeth in fury.
At the sight of him, something went quiet within me.
All my hatred ended.
I pitied Iron to have had such a creature feeding on him from within.
All for what?
All for a mere kingdom, here and gone.
Nothing.
Easy for you to say, said Curtin, answering my thoughts as if I'd spoken them aloud.
You who rule all the 11 lands, why could you not give me just this one?
I waved my torch between us to hold him back as I crossed to the center of the room to retrieve my sword.
Because I loved Elinda.
This country was my bride's by right.
I wanted it!
I wanted it!
He said, pounding his chest, as if he thought this were an unanswerable argument.
I swept my sword off the floor and faced him.
I held Elinda's blade in one hand and the torch in the other.
So much misery for just a throne.
I wanted it!
I shook my head.
I sighed.
What a dick.
I moved to the wall beside the door.
I lifted the torch.
I touched the tapestry there with the flame.
It caught swiftly and blazed high, the fire roaring.
Curtin watched the fire rise, his beady eyes wild with rage.
You think I'll die here?
Did you forget, Anastasius?
I set my legion free from the place to which you condemned us.
I have the power to open that door now, the same as you have.
And I have the power to seal it.
Go back and see.
Go back where you came from, or burn here, Curtin.
It makes no difference to me.
The tapestry was now all consumed by fire.
Ashes and sparks flew off it and drifted through the room.
Another tapestry caught and started burning, then another.
In moments, the flames surrounded us.
They climbed high.
They licked at the wooden rafters beneath the roof.
The rafters burned.
Black, black smoke coiled through the tower room.
I stepped into the doorway and faced the wizard where he was trapped within.
Curtin stood in the midst of the blaze and glared at me.
I could tell he was trying to think his way out of this.
I could see it in his eyes, as they flickered and darkened with the flickering, darkening flames.
I escaped before.
I'll escape again.
The mines of men will make a passage for me.
And for me.
Wherever you go, Curtin, I'll be there.
I'll find you.
Count on it.
The walls and the roof were all on fire now.
The heat was nearly unbearable, and the smoke so thick it was suffocating.
I stepped out the door to the top of the stairs.
All I wanted was a crown, you bastard!
I faced him.
I had to lift my voice over the roar of the fire now.
The crown belonged to Elinda, I told him one last time.
It was hers by right.
I wanted it!
And then the flaming roof came crashing down on him.
Or nearly on him.
At the last second, he vanished, opening a red door in the red fire and flitting away, back into the hell I'd fashioned for him.
I summoned my will and shut the passage, sealing him in there.
Then I walked away, slowly descending the stairs as the tower burned around me.
By the time I exited the castle and reached my stallion where it waited beside the moat, the great tower was spouting black smoke at every window.
I could hear its wooden supports cracking and splintering.
I could hear its big stones grinding and shifting as the mortar that held them in place softened under the heat.
I swept into the saddle and spurred the big beast away.
As I rode, my victorious invaders fell into rank behind me.
I was leading them across the bridges and down the hill when the high tower collapsed in on itself, the flaming debris crumbling into the core of the structure.
By the time we reached the graveyard again, the entire castle complex had begun to explode behind us.
Building after building burst apart where it stood, the debris flying through the air every which way, the heat washing down over us in a billow.
My stallion reared and whinnied and spread its wings, but I wrestled it down.
I did not want to leave my troops leaderless in the fire.
I lifted my sword to rally them behind me.
We crossed the cemetery in a hurrying mass.
The earth rumbled under us as we went.
The last stone monuments shivered and toppled over.
Soft explosions hurled dirt in sudden armloads through the air, and snaking tendrils of green gas glowed and then ignited to the right and left of us.
Fire rose up from the earth and turned the atmosphere a hellish red.
We rode on.
We reached the edge of the castle hill.
I looked down and saw fires burning everywhere below me.
Great thunderous concussions shook the buildings as the flames licked through their windows and out their doors.
I could see patches of gathered gas exploding, pyres of corpses reigniting in the squares.
I saw my forces regrouping and moving in a dark tide toward the city's gates.
Here and there, I could make out the flesh-hung skeletons of starving citizens emerging from their hiding places to join the Exodus.
There were no more signs of battle anywhere.
The fighting was over.
The day was won.
I snapped the stallion's reins and let him spread his wings.
We lifted up into the air above Eastrum.
The cavalry joined me there.
The infantry moved on below.
I looked down and watched as my whole host, a huge black mass of humanity, poured over the shattered walls and out into the open country, the city's survivors stumbling after.
My stallion's wings beat the air in a slow, majestic rhythm.
We rose higher and higher, the sky around us shaking as more and more explosions sounded below us.
I stood watch in the smoke until my armies were clear of Eastrom.
Then I and my stallion soared up above the miasma into the heights of the clean, clear morning.
I looked down through the mist one last time and saw the buildings tilting, falling, the earth opening, flames spewing up from the exposed tunnels, the whole city sinking, tumbling, crumbling into the ever-widening pit of raging flames.
Audio Magic00:00:44
Another Kingdom, The Final Season.
Written by me, Andrew Klavan.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 17, Return to Galeana, was directed by Jonathan Hay.