By Jon Croft
Simon Magus is nursed back to health by a kindly old woman who finds him limping around the docks in Old City Acre. A Christian lady named Livinia. He’s foraging for muscles and whatever else he can scavenge to eat by day – and sleeping in dark shadows at night, cold and hungry. Livinia is a fisherman’s widow who mend’s fishing nets for piecework wages and lives in an old stone warehouse her husband repaired small boats in when he was alive. Livinia helps Simon back to her home and the two become friends.
In a few weeks, Simon’s emaciated and chronically abused body takes on weight; his mind slowly becomes alert again. He no longer shakes and his nausea is gone. His craving for the Dragon powder has miraculously vanished. But his recent experience with Gabriel’s “apparition” haunts him – was it all drug-fueled hallucination? And what about the blade? If it wasn’t gifted by the Angel Gabriel – then who?
The why of it all torments him. Why him? Why pick a drug-addicted wreck of a man to serve God? Simon is mired in self-doubt. Did the Dragon powder warp his head so that he now abides in a fantasy world? He manipulates people’s minds – their perceptions of reality – for a living. Has some even more powerful sorcerer bested him? Is he now the pitiful victim of some cruel game?
Simon searches for answers amidst the vast ocean of humanity that is Acre. He has no money – so he frequents the bounteous assortment of taverns and fleshpots in Old Port Town to replenish his purse. He quickly re-polishes old skills, relieving sailors of their wages in stage-crafted games of chance and bets on magic tricks. He wins big when he convinces a room full of seamen that he can float above their heads and drop wine on them. They accost him afterwards, flummoxed – their hair drenched with the libation. He pockets three hundred Denarii that night…
He offers it to Livinia to pay her back for her kindness. She smiles but refuses the money.
“It is the wages of sin, Simon Magus”, she gently says.
He is embarrassed by her virtue – but undaunted. He can’t live as a penniless derelict. Magic is his only trade.
Each evening, he shocks and amazes locals and sailors alike with abilities they find inconceivable. Simon’s mastery of autosuggestion – convincing people to see and experience the things he that suggests to them are happening – fills his pockets with coins. He rationalizes his immoral conduct by remembering the blade he keeps strapped to his body under his robes. The Seax and Gabriel’s message.
“If my vision of Gabriel is real – I must be ready for anything. But I will not face my destiny a pauper…”
He warily ponders his curious situation. He’s living on his wits – but rudderless and hopelessly adrift. He’s little more than a sideshow hustler, waiting and hoping for a break. Where are those companions Gabriel said would make themselves known to him? Can deliverance truly be his fate?
In the meantime, throngs of weak minds – sailors and dockworkers, Centurions and dregs of humanity – are like putty in his hands. Making money in Acre is like taking sweets from children. The priests of Egypt at Abydos taught him well. He soon has a reputation for sleight of hand – card games, table games and all variations of bait and switch. He’s lightening quick and never errs. Tanginus, Commander of the Roman harbor guard’s cohort in Acre demands “Protection Money” from Simon. He pays up without protest. The circus act that is Simon Magus is flush with spoils. Tavern owners want him around to draw clientele – and word of mouth publicity is making him quite the celebrity. With so many eyes on him, security is just what he needs. It’s a good investment.
Each night before sleep he hefts and practices with the long Seax blade he keeps under his robes. He’s had some training with edged weapons in Egypt, but nothing like this. He knows a work of art when he sees one.
The blade part of it is exactly the length of Simon’s forearm; its handle is the length of Simon’s hand – and feels as if his very grasp was the mold for it. Its weight is mere grams. Its hardness is unimaginable – yet has a remarkable ability to flex ever so slightly. Exquisite designs on its handle – intricate notches and raised convolutions married together – are expertly carved into aged cedar wood. Gripping the knife instinctive for him. Comforting.
The deep swirls and gleaming patina of the blade itself is a thing of beauty, more fit for exhibition in a trophy room or shrine than a battle setting. Its edge is honed and whetted to a sharpness he’s never seen before. Simon intuits a mysterious power emanating from Gabriel’s knife when he wields it, like it’s talking to him. The Seax is an extension of his very being. Like another limb. The weapon is perfectly balanced – and always hits its mark, point-first, when thrown. Simon is convinced that it’s been specially crafted for him…that – somehow – his Seax knife has a soul. A Soul that is kindred to his own.
Then, at long last, it happens.
After a particularly lucrative night at a singularly degenerate tavern in Old Port Acre, Simon is finally approached. He’s a sailor – but in crisp garb with an uncharacteristically trimmed beard and no-nonsense demeanor. He’s got broad shoulders and is physically imposing. He walks like a predatory animal. Simon’s seen his type before. He’s a killer, a survivor of many mortal engagements. A mercenary. In a low voice he offers to buy Simon a drink.
Simon declines – but instead, smiles and offers the man a money wager for a turn of the dice on the bar in front of them.
“Three Denarii – if I throw doubles three times in a row”.
The man responds in a humorless voice.
“If I win, I’ll have that custom blade you’ve got strapped to your belly….”
Simon struggles to keep his face relaxed, betraying no surprise or other emotion. He looks into the man’s eyes. They’re cold and pitiless.
“What makes you think I’ve got a weapon strapped to my body?”
He moves backward from the man ever so slightly – in case he has to draw his Seax in conflict for the first time.
The man looks around him wearily. He doesn’t hide his disgust at their surroundings.
“You are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, Simon Magus.”
His voice is redolent with sadness. But he then gets to the point. He’s all business.
“Your time has come. Say farewell to Livinia. This night we leave for Thessaly in Greece. A remote hermitage in Meteora. Your training will commence at the next full moon. Your mind and body must be sanctified before you can take your vows. It will take at least a century for you to learn what you must learn…. but no matter. You have an Eternity”.
A few hours later Simon Magus is on board a sloop heading Northwest to Greece. His companion engages in little conversation, save to offer Simon some food and to ask him to throw his purse overboard. When Simon asks why, he responds earnestly,
“It is the wages of sin. And your time of contact with all manner of sin is ended. Your life now belongs to the Lord.”
Copyright, 2024 Jon Croft
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
