Destroyer 128: The End of the Beginning

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

PROLOGUE

"He does not belong. No matter what lies he tells you."

Ancient fury sparked in the depths of his mother's almond-shaped eyes. Beyond her crooked shape, orange flames crackled in the stone fireplace.

The small house was warm through no effort of those who lived there. The same was true for all the homes in the village, for as far back as anyone could remember.

The firewood was always there in the warm house with the solid roof that kept out the driving spring rain and winter wind, all because of him. The Impostor.

Those who thanked him didn't know the truth. He was a fraud masquerading as their protector. There were no thanks for the Impostor in this house. So what if he kept fires burning and bellies full? In this tiny house, the hatred was worse than the cold. Ancient malice gnawed bellies far worse than any hunger pangs.

"Learn well what he teaches you," his mother said to the boy. "But know that he does not belong. He is a fraud, as was his father before him, all down the line to the first."

The boy had learned early in life that members of his family alone were not frauds. The only exception was his own father. A soft-spoken man, the husband of his mother was not blood of their blood. Worse, he was brother to the tyrant who fed the village. The boy's mother had married the fool in order to get close to him. To her brother-in-law, the Impostor.

A moan came from the corner of the room.

The boy's grandfather. A portly shaman, he sat on a stool, wrinkled eyelids closed tight. The old man spent most days sitting in the corner of the main room. The boy's mother said the old man could speak with the dead. His powers went beyond even that.

Near the shaman, a young woman was preparing the evening meal in a cast-iron pot.

The shaman's other daughter was called Sonmi. Sister to the boy's hectoring mother, she spent her days studying the black arts at the feet of her father. The food the boy's aunt was cooking-like everything else in the village-had been paid for by the Impostor.