The Ring of Set

"The Ring of Set" is a short story written by Richard L. Tierney, the first of his Simon of Gitta tales to be published. It appeared in Swords Against Darkness in 1977.
The story introduced Simon of Gitta, based on the biblical figure of Simon Magus and modeled on Jack Palance's portrayal of that figure in the 1954 film The Silver Chalice.
Set in March, 37 AD, the story involves the ex-gladiator Simon's attempt to retrieve the Ring of Set, a powerful and cursed magic item once owned by the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon, that had fallen into the hands of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Simon also comes into conflict with Tiberius' nephew Gaius, better known as Caligula.
In the story, Simon is described as:
The Ring of Set first appeared in Robert E. Howard's Conan story "The Phoenix on the Sword", and made a reappearance in Howard's "The Haunter of the Ring". Tierney describes the item as "a strange ornament, fashioned in the shape of a thrice-coiled serpent gripping its tail in its mouth. The eyes were small, bright yellow jewels that seemed almost to twinkle with an inner life of their own." The ring carries a curse that dooms any ruler who wears it; Tiberius ignores Simon's warning about the curse, to his later regret.
The ring allows the entity Set--described as "the most ancient and evil god ever worshiped by the race of man"--to fatally feed on Tiberius' life essence; the curse provides a fictional explanation for Tiberius' death, which in actual history did occur on March 16, AD 37. In the novel The Drums of Chaos--published three decades later but set earlier in the chronology of the series--Tierney identifies Set with the Cthulhu Mythos deity Hastur.
In "The Ring of Set", Simon cites the Book of Thoth--"written more than ten thousand years ago by Thoth-Amon"--as possibly holding the secret to negating the curse of the ring.
== Behind the Mythos ==
Tierney wrote "The Ring of Set" around 1960, after seeing The Silver Chalice and being struck by Palance's portrayal of the sorcerer Simon Magus. "I never intended it to be the start of a series," Tierney later said. The story remained unpublished for about 16 years, until Tierney's friend Kirby McCauley submitted it to Andy Offutt, who was preparing the first in a series of sword & sorcery anthologies. Its reception upon publication encouraged Tierney to write more stories featuring Simon.DMR, "Richard L. Tierney - The DMR Interview," by Howie K. Bentley, August 23, 2019.
==Publication History==
*Swords Against Darkness (1977, 1990)
*The Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones (1997)
*Sorcery Against Caesar (2020)
== References ==
Category:Richard L. Tierney works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works