Behind the Wall of Fire

Once upon a time there was a peaceful land. It was a prosperous land full of many people that lived for the most part in tranquility and harmony.

But as almost all stories worth telling happen, the peace was shattered one afternoon when the dreadful evil came upon the land and shattered the productivity of the land of Netts.

Now, it wasn’t peaceful in all of Netts. The kingdom was divided into two regions that were not ruled by the same sort of people at all. On the outskirts of the island lay the region known as Outer Netts. In it lay many sprawling cities and slums of all sorts imaginable. The vilest people inhabited it.

Between the two regions was a wall made of pure fire. It burned night and day and kept the inhabitants of Inner Netts safe from the outside influences of corruption.

This is the story of how a simple trick defeated the wall.

Wall of fire

The guard of one of the three gates (the gate named “peace” ironically) saw in the distance a horse made of bronze. It was being pulled by a team of four white horses. The bronze horse was mounted on wheels and had all sorts of gifts in a golden bowl on its back. In the basket (made of solid gold mind you) mounted upon its back there were beautiful paintings, musical instruments that had been charmed into playing themselves, and various wondrous things.

The guard let the horses bring the gift inside the gate. He suspected foul intent, but saw no harm in letting the contraption through the gate.

Once he did though, he noticed that the gate seemed to have a mind of its own.

He heard a sound that sounded like chanting coming from inside the horse, but could barely make it out for the incessant sound of the magical instruments playing their happy little ditties. It was at this point that the gate swung wide open and a might army of Wallrusses rushed in.

Now, let me explain, the Outer Nett was filled with a people who were called the Russes. The ones who lived nearest the wall and had been trying for generations to break through the fire wall and take over the Inner Netts, were known as Wallrusses.

The guard, realizing that the horse knew one of the Ten Hexes and was using it to control the gate, slammed his spear into the side of the horse hoping to destroy it, but he was unsuccessful and was attacked by three of the midget Russes that flooded in at the speed of electricity.

At the core of the realm, there stood a proud city. The Central Processor ruled over it with much wisdom and foreknowledge…but not all.

At his beck and call were many brave knights. Two of them stood out from among the rest. Sir Mac Afee and Lord Norton. The former was a broad shouldered brute of a man, but a good man. He would fight with more tenacity than any other warrior in the kingdom. The latter, Lord Norton, was a smart man and a scientist. He was not known for his courage, as a matter of fact, he had been known to run away from fights before, but through his superior knowledge of his surroundings and his use of chemistry, he had still won against those opponents. Now few would oppose him.

Once word reached the castle of the failure of the firewall, two armies were dispatched under the commands of sir Mac Afee and Lord Norton.

Sir Mac Afee and his horsemen arrived first and smashed into the wall of Russes headlong. For a short time it seemed as if Sir Mac Afee and his horsemen would win, but it wasn’t too long until the horde adapted to this kind of assault and started to slaughter the horsemen. With no recourse, Sir Mac Afee retreated to regroup. Immediately, Lord Norton came over the hill with a giant force of diverse soldiers. He and ten others rode elephants, and they pulled catapults and ballista’s and many other heavy weapons. When they arrived, Mac Afee and his men that were left rallied and lead the charge into the enemy flood. The heavy weapons did their work well, and soon, the Central Processing army had reached the gate and pushed back the enemy forces. They couldn’t get the gate to shut though. The Hex was keeping the gate open, and another Hex was keeping the bronze horse from being destroyed. Lord Norton, even though he knew one of the Ten Hexes was unable to overpower the Bronze horses defenses or let the gate shut, and if there had been no other help, the story would have ended badly. As it is, the CP forces were forced into full retreat.

Back at the castle, there was a little known knight named Aevy Gee who had put forth a proposal to the king. Though the king was reluctant, he decided to implement the plan as a backup.

Sire Aevy Gee raced north to the desert to find the rumored wizard who lived there. He was known as a trouble shooting wizard to some, even though few really understood the significance of the title as he lived in absolute isolation. Rumor had it that he had breath that could kill, and that the isolation wasn’t by his choice.

When Sir Aevy Gee finally found him, he was in a horrible mood and threatened to blow him away, but Sir Avey Gee threw the letter from the king at the wizard and acted just as gruff as the grumpy old hermit. At this, the wizard softened a little. The hermit read the letter and decided to help the young knight to make his way in the world. After all, this is what the trouble shooting wizard most hoped that he could have done, so he might as well help someone else achieve the same goal.

The wizard blew into a glass, capped it with a glass lid and handed it to the young knight explaining that this was to destroy the bronze horse. Of course, there was no way for the wizard to know there would be a bronze horse, and this astounded the knight who had known about the horse, but not mentioned it.

The wizard instructed the knight to throw the glass at the horse at exactly noon of the following day.

This meant that Sir Aevy Gee would have to hurry. The knight said his thanks and then rode with great haste to the gate.

A few miles out, he passed the remainder of the joint army and charged headlong into the sea of enemy foot soldiers.

They struck out with their swords, axes and clubs trying to kill him and his horse, but they couldn’t get through the Hex he was using as a shield.

His horse stumbled on several of the enemy soldiers and tossed him to the ground where he rolled for 6 feet before he stopped. In the confusion, he was allowed to rise to his feet before he was attacked. A knee sized Wall Russ swung his axe, but was stopped mid swing by sir Aevy’s sword. With little effort, Sir Aevy dispatched him and the next few. After a moment, the Russes decided to rush him as one and just before they reached him, he muttered the number one Hex.

Round about him, everything living exploded for a quarter mile sending the enemy flying in all directions.

He collapsed to his knees thoroughly winded.

After a minute, he gathered himself and summoned the strength to go on. He made it within 100 feet of the horse before the Wall Russes attacked him again, banking upon the notion that he wouldn’t be able to do that again.

They were right, but it didn’t matter. At 50 feet, and precisely noon, he tossed the glass container at the horse.

To his amazement, it grew to twice the size of the horse and swallowed it.

As soon as the jar labeled “Quarantine” cut off the horse from the gate, the gate slammed shut with a sound that could be heard as far away as Central City.

The Russes, caught in hostile territory fought like caged animals.

Sir Aevy Gee sent a pulse to Lord Norton using the Hex code and fought bravely until sunset when the cavalry arrived followed by the heavy weaponry. They made short work of the remaining soldiers.

The next day, the field was clear of the dead bodies. They had faded into the night from which they came.

3 thoughts on “Behind the Wall of Fire

  1. Mark

    So you have had some computer problems? CP (as in CPU?). Trojan horse (as in virus). Quarantine? Virus fighting. It is like you took a battle with your computer and made it a story.

    Reply
  2. Matthew Gedeon

    I was actually not the victim of the viruses…but I helped a few people who were.
    I couldn’t think of a way to make a story analogous to a real computer battle that would be in any way interesting, (Who would have three virus protection programs and still get a Trojan? I don’t know.) So, I made up something interesting using the myths already built into computer lore. (Hexadecimal, trouble shooting wizard, Trojan…who comes up with this stuff anyway?)

    Reply

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