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Read about how Peter met Sefii
Read about how Peter met Sefii
The story behind Twitter - the search for the genie army - Origins
July 9 #origin
As they traveled together, Peter told Sefii the legend of the Genie Army. As legends go, this happened in a time that was only documented by storytellers like Homer, who heard the legends from their grandparents. The origin of this story could be traced back to the Hu-nans and their tombs in the dry caverns in the Sahara.
An archaeologist of little fame and even less repute found a cavern. Inside the walls had been carved with niches from floor to ceiling and entirely encompassing the final room. In each niche was a lantern. Some say they were like the lanterns in the story of Aladdin; others say they were like those mentioned in the Bible. Some say that they never existed at all because the archaeologist and the lamps disappeared shortly after he discovered them.
No one knows what happened, and the only piece of evidence that anything had happened at all, Peter had dug up in a musty old library far from any real civilization. It was little more than a fragment really. A half page in some forgotten magazine with an artist rendering of the Chamber of Lamps and the whisper of a fairy tale:
Long ago, a man gathered together all of the magic lamps in the world and held them in a chamber. He had hoped to use the combined power of the genies to vanquish the foes at his doorstep, but he did not know that two entities with the power of a genie could not occupy the same place at the same time without the key.
As his foes knocked at the walls with their cannons, the man took two of the lamps to the top of the wall and rubbed them together. When the two genies emerge, the explosion could be heard in other kingdoms. All that was left of the city, its walls and the enemy army was crater.
Some particularly adventurous people explored the crater but found that nothing remained, except a small scrap of verse written on a bronze lamp. All others avoided the place as cursed, and none sought the treasure that the man had gathered. The power of the genie was too tricky for wise men to acquire.
The verse read:
Seek not that gathered by Lamael
Or imperiled you will be
The desert, the mountain, the hill and the dale
Nowhere is safe from genie
The city was eventually swallowed by the desert, and the story all but forgotten. Neither Lamael nor the archaeologist who had disappeared managed to find the key, or maybe the archaeologist had.
Peter laughed at the notion – genies and efreet were nothing more than folk tales used to deal out punishment in stories meant to sooth the masses and give people the opportunity to believe in justice even if there was no such thing in the real world. Opiates for the masses were what most fairytales were.
“But how do you know where the cavern is?” asked Sefii when Peter ended the story. They were just finishing their midday nap and getting ready to travel through the cool of the evening and night.
“I’m not looking for the cavern, kid. I’m looking for the key.” He smirked. Without the key, the rest of it wasn’t even fit for a museum. Find the key, and the lamps will almost appear like magic.
“If no one else could find the key, Mister Sinclair, how will you?”
“Well, Sefii, no one else had a lifetime of research, and no one else had this.” Peter held up a small piece of paper, yellowed with age that he pulled out of a book. On it was written what appeared to be a poem:
July 10 #Extant
Lewis’ lamp post will light the way.
#.cold into accord
#.was standing hanging,
#.Lucy
#.and their at,
#.she she did “I like
#.up and was
"Mister Sinclair, I do not read your language."
Peter smiled. "That's okay, Sefii, without this book, it wouldn't matter what you could read, but it is the word 'extant' that tells us that the key exists. It is the code that tells us where it exists."
July 11 #supermoon
The moon allowed the duo to travel much more quickly than on other nights that they had traveled. It was large, and Sefii called it a super moon. Peter just smiled. It was the regular moon, but its position on the horizon made it look larger than on other evenings.
Traveling at night in the desert was cooler and in some ways safer. It was also far more dangerous when it came to animal life. The desert came alive at night; one wrong step could find a man on top of a venomous snake or worse – at least a venomous snake only injected poison 20 percent of the time. There were other creatures that were far less merciful.
July 12 #TotalSlaughter
The two travelers crossed a wadi. Sefii looked at it thoughtfully. “You know, Mister Sinclair, some people say this is where the Jews defeated the Egyptians.”
Peter looked at Sefii. “The Jews never defeated the Egyptians, Sefii.”
“Well, yes, that is what Westerners believe because they always take the Bible literally. But the story of Moses is not what you think it is, Mister Sinclair. It is much more complicated.” Sefii smiled. “It is hard to believe that the Jews would have ever had the upper hand on the Egyptians, but when they retreated, they ended up in this valley in this dry river bed. The Egyptians though it would be a total slaughter. They took their time approaching the Jews, but what they did not notice was that the Jews took shelter in that wall.”
Sefii pointed across the dry river bed at the bottom of the valley. “They were small in number and poorly armed, but even a desperate man looks for the advantage. They saw that they would have the high ground when it came to battle. They also trusted that the river bed would give them an additional advantage in height.”
Peter looked at the way the river bed turned to curve around the high ground. The Egyptians would have been marching directly on it.
“This is the desert, Mister Sinclair. Water is rare, and water from the sky can affect areas that are far from where it falls. The Egyptians were caught when the river flooded without warning, and the Jews were saved,” Sefii bowed his head. “It may have been a miracle from God, but the accounts that have been passed down through generations of my people do not match those of your Bible. It is possible that the real story sounded far too fantastic or that the details were reconstructed from a faulty memory. It is just as possible that my people have forgotten the details. But what makes for the better miracle? We are far from the Promised Land. The journey from here to there would have taken many decades… This wadi is called “The Passing of the Great One’s Children” in our language. It is a place that is both great and terrible, and only the truly desperate come here to find a miracle or find their doom. Which do we seek?”
Peter looked at Sefii. “We don’t seek either of those, kid; we seek fortune and glory. Let’s find a place that is a little less likely to flood to wait out the heat of the day.”
July 13 #Trueblood
Peter and Sefii settled down out of the hot sun. They were fortunate enough to find a rocky overhang that would provide protection even when the sun was directly overhead. Peter could feel that they were close. In fact, he suspected that this was the rocky outcropping that the old archaeologist had described in his journal. The place where the key was hidden shouldn’t be too far.
After working out the puzzle of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, Peter felt like he knew the mind of the old archaeologist. It should be easy to get to the key, but there would be other puzzles. Then there was the mention of “one of true blood.” Peter thought it all superstitious nonsense, but behind every superstition, Peter had learned that there was an element of truth. He had to work out that element before he could get to the next stage of the quest. The lamps weren’t worth anything without the key, but the key was equally as useless without the lamps.
As they traveled together, Peter told Sefii the legend of the Genie Army. As legends go, this happened in a time that was only documented by storytellers like Homer, who heard the legends from their grandparents. The origin of this story could be traced back to the Hu-nans and their tombs in the dry caverns in the Sahara.
An archaeologist of little fame and even less repute found a cavern. Inside the walls had been carved with niches from floor to ceiling and entirely encompassing the final room. In each niche was a lantern. Some say they were like the lanterns in the story of Aladdin; others say they were like those mentioned in the Bible. Some say that they never existed at all because the archaeologist and the lamps disappeared shortly after he discovered them.
No one knows what happened, and the only piece of evidence that anything had happened at all, Peter had dug up in a musty old library far from any real civilization. It was little more than a fragment really. A half page in some forgotten magazine with an artist rendering of the Chamber of Lamps and the whisper of a fairy tale:
Long ago, a man gathered together all of the magic lamps in the world and held them in a chamber. He had hoped to use the combined power of the genies to vanquish the foes at his doorstep, but he did not know that two entities with the power of a genie could not occupy the same place at the same time without the key.
As his foes knocked at the walls with their cannons, the man took two of the lamps to the top of the wall and rubbed them together. When the two genies emerge, the explosion could be heard in other kingdoms. All that was left of the city, its walls and the enemy army was crater.
Some particularly adventurous people explored the crater but found that nothing remained, except a small scrap of verse written on a bronze lamp. All others avoided the place as cursed, and none sought the treasure that the man had gathered. The power of the genie was too tricky for wise men to acquire.
The verse read:
Seek not that gathered by Lamael
Or imperiled you will be
The desert, the mountain, the hill and the dale
Nowhere is safe from genie
The city was eventually swallowed by the desert, and the story all but forgotten. Neither Lamael nor the archaeologist who had disappeared managed to find the key, or maybe the archaeologist had.
Peter laughed at the notion – genies and efreet were nothing more than folk tales used to deal out punishment in stories meant to sooth the masses and give people the opportunity to believe in justice even if there was no such thing in the real world. Opiates for the masses were what most fairytales were.
“But how do you know where the cavern is?” asked Sefii when Peter ended the story. They were just finishing their midday nap and getting ready to travel through the cool of the evening and night.
“I’m not looking for the cavern, kid. I’m looking for the key.” He smirked. Without the key, the rest of it wasn’t even fit for a museum. Find the key, and the lamps will almost appear like magic.
“If no one else could find the key, Mister Sinclair, how will you?”
“Well, Sefii, no one else had a lifetime of research, and no one else had this.” Peter held up a small piece of paper, yellowed with age that he pulled out of a book. On it was written what appeared to be a poem:
July 10 #Extant
Lewis’ lamp post will light the way.
#.cold into accord
#.was standing hanging,
#.Lucy
#.and their at,
#.she she did “I like
#.up and was
"Mister Sinclair, I do not read your language."
Peter smiled. "That's okay, Sefii, without this book, it wouldn't matter what you could read, but it is the word 'extant' that tells us that the key exists. It is the code that tells us where it exists."
July 11 #supermoon
The moon allowed the duo to travel much more quickly than on other nights that they had traveled. It was large, and Sefii called it a super moon. Peter just smiled. It was the regular moon, but its position on the horizon made it look larger than on other evenings.
Traveling at night in the desert was cooler and in some ways safer. It was also far more dangerous when it came to animal life. The desert came alive at night; one wrong step could find a man on top of a venomous snake or worse – at least a venomous snake only injected poison 20 percent of the time. There were other creatures that were far less merciful.
July 12 #TotalSlaughter
The two travelers crossed a wadi. Sefii looked at it thoughtfully. “You know, Mister Sinclair, some people say this is where the Jews defeated the Egyptians.”
Peter looked at Sefii. “The Jews never defeated the Egyptians, Sefii.”
“Well, yes, that is what Westerners believe because they always take the Bible literally. But the story of Moses is not what you think it is, Mister Sinclair. It is much more complicated.” Sefii smiled. “It is hard to believe that the Jews would have ever had the upper hand on the Egyptians, but when they retreated, they ended up in this valley in this dry river bed. The Egyptians though it would be a total slaughter. They took their time approaching the Jews, but what they did not notice was that the Jews took shelter in that wall.”
Sefii pointed across the dry river bed at the bottom of the valley. “They were small in number and poorly armed, but even a desperate man looks for the advantage. They saw that they would have the high ground when it came to battle. They also trusted that the river bed would give them an additional advantage in height.”
Peter looked at the way the river bed turned to curve around the high ground. The Egyptians would have been marching directly on it.
“This is the desert, Mister Sinclair. Water is rare, and water from the sky can affect areas that are far from where it falls. The Egyptians were caught when the river flooded without warning, and the Jews were saved,” Sefii bowed his head. “It may have been a miracle from God, but the accounts that have been passed down through generations of my people do not match those of your Bible. It is possible that the real story sounded far too fantastic or that the details were reconstructed from a faulty memory. It is just as possible that my people have forgotten the details. But what makes for the better miracle? We are far from the Promised Land. The journey from here to there would have taken many decades… This wadi is called “The Passing of the Great One’s Children” in our language. It is a place that is both great and terrible, and only the truly desperate come here to find a miracle or find their doom. Which do we seek?”
Peter looked at Sefii. “We don’t seek either of those, kid; we seek fortune and glory. Let’s find a place that is a little less likely to flood to wait out the heat of the day.”
July 13 #Trueblood
Peter and Sefii settled down out of the hot sun. They were fortunate enough to find a rocky overhang that would provide protection even when the sun was directly overhead. Peter could feel that they were close. In fact, he suspected that this was the rocky outcropping that the old archaeologist had described in his journal. The place where the key was hidden shouldn’t be too far.
After working out the puzzle of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, Peter felt like he knew the mind of the old archaeologist. It should be easy to get to the key, but there would be other puzzles. Then there was the mention of “one of true blood.” Peter thought it all superstitious nonsense, but behind every superstition, Peter had learned that there was an element of truth. He had to work out that element before he could get to the next stage of the quest. The lamps weren’t worth anything without the key, but the key was equally as useless without the lamps.
