The next morning, Ayanwale awoke with a hum in his ears. The kind of hum you feel more than hear—low, constant, like something alive was vibrating just beneath the surface of the world.
He stepped outside and looked around.
Everything seemed normal. The scent of pepper soup drifted from Mama Okon's kiosk. Children shouted and chased each other with palm fronds. But the hum persisted.
Rotimi caught up with him near the well. "People are talking about you, you know," he said, tossing a stone into the water.
"Let them talk."
"They're saying the drum has made you a prophet."
Ayanwale glanced at him. "It hasn't made me anything. I'm still becoming."
But even as he said that, his ears caught a sound—a heartbeat.
Not his own. Not Rotimi's. Someone else's. Quick. Nervous.
He turned his head slowly. Across the square, beneath the cloth awnings of the market, a man stood watching him—Oba Kazeem, one of the town elders. A man who had never once acknowledged Ayanwale's drumming as anything more than noise.
His lips were smiling, but the rhythm of his breath was all wrong—staggered, shallow, hiding something.
And behind that rhythm… a whisper.
"The boy must not complete the rhythms. The curse must remain sealed."
The voice wasn't spoken. It vibrated—somewhere between thought and sound. Ayanwale could hear it clearly, though no one else could.
His gift was working.
He turned to Rotimi. "Elder Kazeem… he's hiding something."
"Ah," Rotimi whispered, glancing over. "That man? He always acts like he owns the town."
"He fears the drum," Ayanwale said. "Not out of ignorance—out of knowledge."
That night, Ayanwale sat with the Royalty Drum once more. He didn't play it. Not yet. He had a plan.
If the drum revealed hidden truths through rhythm, then perhaps there was a way to use it outside the dream world—to expose secrets in the living.
So he went to the market square at midnight, where the stone circle lay—a place once used for town meetings, long since abandoned.
He placed the drum in the center. Lit a single oil lamp. Then began to beat.
Not the ancestral rhythms—something new. An improvisation. A calling.
The sound echoed off the stone walls. Carried by the wind. Sharp, sacred, seeking.
Moments later, Elder Kazeem appeared in the shadows.
He didn't speak. Just stared. Then stepped forward slowly, his face a mask of calm.
"What do you think you're doing, boy?"
Ayanwale continued drumming. His eyes never left Kazeem.
"I'm playing the truth," he said.
And then—Kazeem winced.
Just slightly. But the sound—the beat—had struck something. A frequency meant only for him.
Ayanwale narrowed his eyes. "You know of Oluwafemi, don't you?"
Kazeem stiffened. "That name is forbidden."
"Because you've been protecting his secret."
The elder's voice dropped. "You don't know what you're digging up."
Ayanwale stood, the drum still vibrating.
"I know he made a pact with spirits. I know the drum was hidden because of him. And I know someone has been feeding the Ajalu."
Kazeem said nothing.
But the shadows behind him moved.
Then split.
Something emerged—a creature made of smoke and bone, eyes glowing like fire trapped in glass. It hissed.
Rotimi, who had been hiding nearby with a torch, stumbled into view, screaming, "AYANWALE—SPIRIT!"
The Ajalu had come.
Ayanwale turned to the drum. No time for fear.
He struck it once—BOOM—and the creature froze.
Again—BOOM—and the air trembled.
Kazeem screamed, clutched his chest, and collapsed.
With a final beat—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—the creature let out a shriek and disintegrated into ash.
Silence.
The square was still.
Rotimi rushed forward. "What was that?!"
"A warning," Ayanwale whispered, breathless. "The Ajalu are watching. And they have helpers in this world."
He looked at the Royalty Drum. A second mark had appeared—this time, a jagged lightning bolt crossing a spiral.
Two rhythms down. Five remain.