The furred, horned beast could not sit for long, and stood as the other two meandered back and forth. It wanted none of others memories, because it wished its own were not so soon coming to a close. It rose and paced, producing a glance at the most from the others.

Back and forth the immortal and the fortress bantered of the future. The fortress remained indifferent, and the immortal could barely conceal his anxiety, coupled up as intensely as that of the pacing beast adjacent to him in the enclosed, windowless room.

They had all been in this room for a good time, and time was something few could spare in the age of nanosecond shifts. Impatience brought the beast to bear on the two, and it growled something shortly.

Then, a scrape of metal on metal rung through the chamber, and echoed well, for all had fallen silent. Beast, immortal and fortress alike turned towards the source.

A regal cloak drifted heavily upon the ground as a large, metal and cloth shape stood from a formerly occupied throne. This man was Doom, but was not to be doom, tonight.

Doom swung his hand slowly, gesturing.

The beast, green and with the lower form of a man but the head and hooves of a bull nodded. The fortress, dispassionate and altogether impenetrable, nodded. And the immortal, suave and swashbuckling, crossed his arms and adopted a proving posture. He, too, nodded.

Doom touched a panel on the arm of his throne, and the room darkened.

Excalibur, serial fourteen: One Night, Which Concerns the Dark Guard.

The fortress and the immortal strode from the huge, presidential chamber as the lights continued to dim. Strange vessels of completely warped technology swam from the floor as the beast strode forward assuredly, as a Minotaur is allowed a most high amount of self-assurance amongst men. It crossed its arms and nodded its head respectfully.

“Rintrah,” thundered Doom. “You are the one who will go. They are familiar with you.”

And so Rintrah the Minotaur turned his cheek from Doom, and beheld what the organic gray steels had formed while the room had darkened and his compatriots left.

“I can make my own way to the Avengers, Doom,” the abrasive bestial voice of the Minotaur answered.

“You will be seen using my methods, Rintrah, and they will know you do not come frivolously.”

“You are not easy to stand beside, Doom,” Rintrah rumbled.

“Go.”

A pylon formed and splinters of light swam through the cables, gleaming between them in white rays, and spotting the room with silvery, pinprick wide knives. Like doors, rows of the cables parted and within a swimming sea of sentient columns of light swirled.

The beast became a shadow amidst this light as he approached.

Then the light swam across that shadow, and when it faded, the machines sank into the ground once more, for Rintrah was no longer there.

And it was far from long when Destine, the fortress, returned with the immortal in tow – the immortal which seemed more agitated than he was before and somewhat less calm about it, in whole.

“We both go?” the immortal aimed at Doom.

“Both of you,” Doom replied, inclining his head as he drifted to a section in the wall. “Please stand on the white panel, and so I will transport you.”

They warily examined the iron monarch as he let his attention from them to the board of controls, which encased the wall in a jeweled splendor; a mural with no design but a mad ideal of order in a thousand different shining colors. The room darkened, except for a panel where all the loose machinery was cleared away. A perfect square, the panel glowed an iridescent white.

The made way for it, and no sooner had the men stepped on its surface than it began to rise, though no sensation accompanied that rise.

It was then that they realized that they were not rising with the panel, but were being consumed by it. There was no sensation for either, the fortress and immortal alike, so they shut their eyes and wait a moment as the panel rose over their heads.

When they dared look again, they were in a sparse, dusty forest of temperate weeds and arid tree growth, yet oddly arranged about what was a decidedly foreign keep in such a way that there was an undeniable rugged beauty about it.

Somehow, here, the sunset loosed an untamable feeling across the desert, and either looked across their shoulder, almost expecting things primal and long extinct to accompany the anachronism of a setting.

“A beautiful sunset,” the immortal said, cool yet somehow anxious.

The fortress sighed and did not reply, but rather stepped forward lightly and with no fear, or hesitation at all towards the keep, which rose, as the sun slowly set, in increasing gray to black splendor high above and across the terrain.

The immortal followed after a moment, and upon both of their reaching the doors, which were set in proportionate hugeness to the castle face, they were surprised when the doors cracked and behind them a young man with dusky islander features and a plump look that completely belied what appeared to be iron hard muscles beneath the loose, draping earth tone robes he wore beheld them.

“The master said to approach the door,” he said softly, surprised, slanted eyes widening slightly.

The two world-tossed adventurers shared a glance, and it was the fortress that then spoke. “I imagine, then, it is your master we are here to see.”

The young man, breathless, nodded. “I am his humble servant, Suhat. He has told me that all his visitors of the day were to be welcomed as honored guests, and, certainly, you are no exception to our prior visitor.”

Suhat’s eyes downcast slightly, and he nodded into the naturally, torch lit keep, as there was no technology to touch this part of the world and perhaps, it was the better untainted and primal for this lack. The fortress and his companion felt as if entering a new world as the threshold was crossed.

Inward, Suhat moved to allow both entry, then he closed the doors and stepped lightly in front of them to guide the way silently. The man appeared slightly harmless in face, kind and ultimately a simple man of intellect, but occasionally his eyes would swim the entire room and he would casually evade some feature of the area where another servant would later stride, even as the men followed him. And finally, while he spoke like a servant, Suhat loped through the keep like a lion barely leashed.

As the sun set further and the natural light that swept through the keep faded, more torches were placed on the walls throughout the palace. The servants did not look towards Suhat for approval, but rather, the two visitors.

“I see the blazons are not for you, but us,” the immortal said with a sardonic smile.

“Yes, sir,” Suhat answered enigmatically, “It is our rule to be courteous to our guests as they come.”

Then, Suhat said, “Ah, here we are.” And they were.

It seemed that they had the sensation of watching a man with blazing, almost eclipsed, bat-like wings of sultry maroon fire turn to behold them, but then the sensation was gone and there was no true indication that anyone had shared anything. The light seemed darker than before, though.

The torch-lit hallway in which they had strode came to a conclusion with a magnificent, physically impossible archway that defied most description, but was set in alabaster and gray stone and seemed to glow softly in the dusk light. And glowing with the arches they stood beneath was someone that defied as much description. In the dusk light, this man seemed the Dusk Lord, for he was perfect. That, the visitors realized at once: he was completely perfect.

“I am afraid you are too late to appreciate the sunset with me,” he said simply, without turning to look at them. “Perhaps, another time we will again have the chance.”

“Perhaps,” the fortress said, almost admiringly.

Suhat bowed his head, and then turned to leave. He made no sound at all.

“I understand you wish me to leave my splendid retirement,” the lord said in a voice that issued like a tiger’s booming roar from his relaxed lips. “And I will listen to you, for while my life is as close to its night as this sunset is to full darkness, all things must glow before they are darkened completely.”

The visitors said little to that, but the fortress took a breath, feeling a kinship with this lord of the keep where dusk fell.

“That is correct,” Destine spoke at last. “I do not know how to ask you to come, for you do not seem as immortal as me and mine. We wished you to join us, but we cannot force you to come.”

The lord was silent, before, with tones as golden as the torchlight that now shone bright on his back from the hallway, he said, “I will come.”

Then he turned his eyes towards his visitors, which sparkled and shone with a light apart from the torches and an intellect blasé and dispassionate from its old vantage of life. The eyes said volumes of his ancient age where his hard and resolute features did not.

“And,” he said, “While I am immortal as you both, it is well past time for my deserved rest. So let us pray whatever task it is we approach, it shall be finished promptly.”

“Adam Warlock,” Destine said, “If you will join us as we leave.”

“I am prepared,” the lord replied to his visitor. And the three left together.

The room began to alight again, not late after Rintrah’s departure. The silhouettes of the twin paragons, each in a way a representation of the future, were profound and solid, imposing on a horizon lain out in figures of cool, gray metal sprawled through a vast chamber in a most haphazard quality. Like a mad scientist, one be-cloaked shadow leaned over a console as the other watched, hand leisurely kept at his hip. Both wore their posture like a bad habit.

One was called Doom, and the other, Destine. And both were men of the future, left over from the distant past.

“And I warn you, as well,” Doom proclaimed, through layers of polished armors, to a machine, and then shut it off with an agitated pass of his palm across a switch. The machine crumpled upon itself after a few short bursts of telecommunicate static, and its collapsible panel crept into the wall, as if cowering from the legendary rage of its operator.

“Doom,” said Destine. His voice was not pleased, frightened, curious or passive, but kept a sole note with no inflection or emotion.

Doom’s shoulders swept back, and his chin lifted, and though he did not respond, he had heard.

“It is unnecessary I know your intentions, but we must confront now.”

“Speak, Father of Destine,” came a hollow echo of a man’s voice.

“One wonders if you and I are both kings upon this board,” Destine began, striding forward until he was at Doom’s shoulder.

“Or, Destine?”

“Or if there can be one king only, in your mind, as in the past.”

The armored chin of Doom stayed unresponsive, aimed where it had been prior to the question, phrased as a statement.

“You may tell me that which you wish,” Doom finally answered.

Destine pursed his lips in a forced frown, and said, “You and I are unbalanced, then. One day, I will wish that balance corrected, or one, of my name, shall. Be it me or my family, that balance should be returned.”

Doom turned his head slightly, as if sensing the frown, and his chin was level as if he did not care. Time broke for a moment, and after which, Doom then nodded. “Granted.”

Doom and Destine, named by the future each, strode from each other, then.

And a pylon formed in the middle of the chamber after Destine had left, spreading to bring the bestial form of the green minotaur. He tossed his head and snorted, looking with bovine eyes at the man who was Doom.

“They turned me away,” the beast proclaimed, “With a declaration of resolute disbelief.”

The iron monarch inclined his chin in an unsurprised nod, swept his cape in his arm, and strode from the room, for it was time to enact the wind and point of the discussion the four had had earlier that evening.

And it was not long before the minotaur followed Doom into a room that was small in the labyrinthine palace of New Latveria. There was a scant light there, bluish and iridescent throughout the entire room, and it emanated from a casket shaped like a compacted bullet, an area carved away and cushioned, with a shield to fold down atop whomever may lie within.

Three shades stood in the blue light of the room. Four counting Doom, and five counting the bestial minotaur. Doom stepped into the casket, and reclined in it. Without a word, a shadow reached forward and rested his hand on the shield to be lowered.

“You have come,” Doom said to the Warlock.

“You knew that is what I would choose,” said Warlock darkly.

“I did,” he replied, “But it is a gamble of why.”

“Yes, it is,” Warlock then said, and lowered the shield.

Above the four, the casket shielding darkened, and eventually, in bluish white light, an array of sylvan alphanumerics began to speed over it.

Warlock looked to Destine questioningly.

“Now,” Destine said, as if understanding his companion’s glance without seeming to even notice it, “It is out of our hands.”

And, like four quiet pallbearers, the men lifted the casket and strode from the room to a destination only they knew in intimacy enough.

“Is it true he's seen what truly lies deeper than the seas?” the immortal asked, as the three released the casket and allowed him full berth.

“Without a doubt,” the beast agreed wisely.

“Something,” Warlock added, “None of us shall ever see.”

Destine forced a smile, but his voice was monotone, “Perhaps we are the better for it.”

“Quiet,” the immortal said. “He comes.”

Then there was a splashing sound when the waves crept coldly against the shore, for they had found themselves on a beach, which had been secured and cleared, one of hundred small spots across Eurasia to assemble a smokescreen, upon exiting use of a preprogrammed white square machine. A shadowed form rose, naked and black with the sunset to its back, as the sun crept west through the sky on its path, slower than the modern men, which moved beneath it.

The immortal stepped forward to meet the silent one, who accepted the burden with no resistance, turned and dove back into the sea with the bluish black casket.

And all watched the figure vanish like a freed fish into the ocean, the only clue of his whereabouts being the glowing casket, except one wizened lord.

“Friends,” he said, “Here is our second sunset.”

And Rintrah did not understand the look of unnerved silence that the dark, immortal man shot to Adam Warlock, for he was not present at the first of the day’s sunsets.

The man who was Destine, however, was. Should he have felt anything, perhaps it was a tingle of the foreboding that the enigmatic lord’s casual prophecy entailed.

Destine, a polite man, could only wonder what his comrade had left unspoken in the words of his portents. But he was puzzled by it, nonetheless.

He was almost curious, but not quite.

EXCALIBUR: MFS #14
A PARADISE LOST TIE-IN
WRITTEN BY: Joseph McCormick, IV

Notes from the Author

This is Joseph, typing to you now as dawn breaks across the midlands of North America. It’s with much thought and deliberation that I wrap this issue up, and after I write this, I’ll go to bed with what I’ve done on my mind.

That is, I’ve given the real author a break for a month, and a much deserved one.

I had a lot of fun writing this one, and it came without a lot of the same fear and worry I usually have when I write free fiction. This is because free fiction is primarily out there so thoughts can be shared and opinions gathered. I, however, simply enjoyed myself while writing this, and I hope you find a bit of fun in it yourself.

You’ll notice I kept it brief. I am not a brief man, as anyone who has followed my plots and abilities can attest. So what’s the rhyme, the reason? I tried to write it like a fairy tale pulp book. That’s why. If you didn’t catch it before, then I’m ashamed of myself for not conveying the magic properly and ask you to read it again to e-mail me with what I should work on.

My e-mail is iron.chamber@juno.com, and I welcome you all to comment.

Joseph C. McCormick / July 10, 2000 / Fayetteville, Arkansas