by Jon Croft
The Roman Port of Acre, Palestine. 67AD
Years pass.
The public loses interest in Simon’s magic. He’s a has-been curiosity. An itinerant freak marked with Egyptian symbols no one understands or cares about anymore. Their tastes have changed.
How can he compete with the live – or resurrected – Jesus? Can he raise some new Lazarus from the dead? Christians are everywhere, murmuring and lurking in their grottos and catacombs, preaching about the New Kingdom of God. Romans are cracking down. Jewish Zealots are becoming violent, terrorizing the authorities.
He’s spent three decades wandering. All around him is chaos. Wars and rumors of wars. People drunk with religion and bigotry. Immorality and sickness. Upheavals at every turn.
A woman – Helen – that he fell in love with three years ago dies while birthing his stillborn child. The doctors say it strangled on its own umbilical cord as his precious Helen writhed in pain for twenty-nine hours.
His days are unsatisfying…filled with despondency. Wasted hours of monotony and meaningless routines. He fills them with bad habits. Drunken binges. Other men’s wives. Criminal and perverse company. Games of chance. His youthful good looks are melting away before his eyes. Even his iconic beard and lion’s mane of hair is silver.
But today, Simon Magus is on a quest.
He’s making his way to the great Port of Acre where the Roman General Vespasian is assembling his legions for war on Judea. Galleons choke the harbor, their holds filled with Centurions, horses, siege engines and provisions for Rome’s final push to subdue Jerusalem.
Simon knows that Roman ports attract a particular opportunist that he seeks. In Antioch he’d shared lodgings with some merchants who introduced him to a white powder they’d recently obtained from strange men on a caravan from Asia. A powder called “Dragon”. Merchants refer to this Asian trade route as the “Silk Road” because it is rumored to stretch to the distant Indies and beyond.
White powder – Dragon – is now the only solace Simon craves.
It quiets his mind. It assuages his torment. But the more he uses it, the more of it he needs. He’s certain he’ll find his Asian therapy in the seedy docks and taverns of Acre where all manner of merchants hawk their wares to the Roman war machine.
His hunt ends late that evening. A swarthy dockworker suggests that Simon follow him to a neighborhood where the Black Sea sailors habituate. One thing leads to another – money changes hands and Simon gets his prize. He stumbles along unfamiliar walls in the dark, groping for a recess within which to partake of his powdery elixir.
Then a searing pain at the back of his head – and everything goes black.
Simon awakens lying in a stinking pile of refuse and rubble. It’s a crumbled foundation in a part of Acre that’s long been forgotten. His head aches and his torn robes are stained with blood – his own. The cold and his unrequited cravings for the white powder have him shaking like an epileptic. His undergarments are soaked through with his own urine. He’s hungry and nauseous at the same time. For someone who started life with such promise, Simon knows his degradation is grotesque.
He stares up at the night sky for what seems to be an eternity and finally mutters in a raspy voice “Master Peter….you’ve won”.
Bitter tears cover his face. But his heart aches worse than his head because that’s where his conscience lives. Shame floods over him like hot, fetid oil. The wastrel he’s become is too much to bear. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he sees a dark figure obscured by a collapsed stone wall a few steps away. Thinking his assailant has returned to punish him further, he struggles to get up and confront him.
Simon painfully gets on his feet and looks directly at the man before him – and then hears a voice. Not a gentle voice – but not a threatening one, either.
“Simon Magus. I am Archangel Gabriel, the Lord’s Messenger. I bring you word from the Lord thy God….”
Simon struggles to focus his eyes on the figure’s face, but it is hidden behind the hood of his full-length cloak. Behind its shoulders are large, indistinct shadows stretching upwards. Wings.
“Simon Magus, God’s own Apostle Peter has bound you on Earth. You are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. You can squander your Eternity here on Earth imbibing white powder from the Orient – or you can make peace with God now and do his work……”
All at once Simon’s shaking stops. His head no longer hurts. He feels no hunger or sickness…
He croaks out a few words: “What must I do?”
Gabriel speaks again.
“Satan has sired on Earth many evil ones – a spawn of corrupted men and women who survive by sucking the blood from innocent souls. Vampires. You must use all your skills – your magic, your necromancy, your illusions and weapons to slay them. You must become a sword and shield for God’s own Crown of Creation, Mankind.
Companions will seek you out – other souls cursed such as you are with Eternal lives of penance to fulfill…who’ve taken God’s Oath to fight Satan’s blasphemous cadres. Each of them carries a long seax fighting blade like the one I leave with you now. By this they will know you are one of them. They will teach you the art of slaying and set your feet on God’s path.
Simon Magus – do you agree to serve the Lord thy God?”
Simon can barely utter sounds through the torrent of emotion that grips him. His swollen eyes burn like hot coals in his head.
“Yes. I will serve. From this moment I am the Lord’s hand”.
Copyright, Jon Croft 2024
vlchek1@gmail.com
(*If anyone wants to create storyboards / graphic novel art for this storyline, let me know. I’d welcome a collaboration.)
