Prologue

Hello dear reader and welcome to the story of the legend they call “Lord Balah” and his gaggle of whores they call “the Witches”.  Lord Balah is an African sangoma who was adopted at birth by an old aristocratic English couple who were holidaying in the foothills of Lesotho one winter day a long time ago.  Found abandoned by a river by Lord Chisselton one dewy morning whilst out hunting the rare and elusive Dingbat pigeon (a rare delicacy amongst the European royal classes and most often eaten raw on a bed of creamed spinach, the Dingbat pigeon has since become an extinct species), Lord Balah was quickly accepted into their family as their own, and was subsequently raised in great opulence and grandeur in the English countryside of Derbyshire, where- as the name suggests- the townspeople hold a lot of derbies throughout the year.

After turning 18 years old, Lord Balah (then called Edward by his adopted family) began having strange dreams and visions which he could not explain.  When he informed Lord and Lady Chisselton of these, he was immediately sent to the most expensive psychiatrist in the nearby city of London, where he was promptly diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and put on an immediate cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and anti-hallucinogenic medication.  Despite this, however, the dreams and visions persisted until one fateful evening an apparition appeared before him…

The person standing before Edward (which was his name at the time) introduced herself as his mother, Thembi Kwokwo.  She told him how she had died giving birth to him on that dewy winters morning:  she was at the river fetching water to wash the dishes with, when she suddenly began having violent and forceful contractions- her uterus quickly spewing the baby from within her womb onto the side of the river.  Thereafter she lost consciousnesses from shock and loss of blood, and fell unceremoniously into the river, never to be see or heard from again.  She went on to tell him that although she was just a simple peasant, that his father was a very powerful and influential Sangoma, and that it was his destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps.

When Edward woke up the next morning, he suddenly and without question felt ready to fulfill his destiny.  All his life he had never felt like he belonged in the English countryside- or even Europe for that matter- and so it was without hesitation that he packed his Abercrombie and Fitch backpack, bade farewell to his adopted parents, and made his way to the country of his birth:  South Africa.  Armed only with a suitcase full of clothes and a heart full of hope, Edward changed his name to Lord Balah and began his quest to fulfill his destiny.