Salemadon stood in front of the giant valley crack. The earth had split open like someone tore reality apart with bare hands. From inside the darkness, heat rolled out in waves, smelling like iron, smoke, and something ancient — something waiting.
Behind him, Althara and Brughan arrived at full sprint, boots skidding against loose stone.
"This wasn't here yesterday," Althara said, breath heavy.
"No," Salemadon replied. "But it has always been here."
The ground trembled again — slow, rhythmic. Like a heartbeat hitting the surface from far below.
Brughan frowned. "That rhythm… it's too perfect for nature."
Salemadon knelt, placing his palm flat against the rock. The glowing white energy threads reacted instantly, spreading under his fingers like veins of light.
"It's a signal," he said. "A message older than sound."
Althara blinked. "From who?"
Salemadon's eyes lifted, glowing faintly. "From a drum that was never struck."
DESCENT
They climbed down into the crack using energy threads as bridges. The deeper they went, the more the air changed. It became thicker, humming quietly — like the space between thunder and silence.
Halfway down, floating crystal shards appeared again, spinning slowly around them like suspended raindrops.
Althara reached out but Salemadon grabbed her wrist gently. "Don't touch them."
"Why?"
"They are memories," he said. "And some memories explode when remembered."
Brughan swallowed hard, pulling his hand back too.
THE CAVERN OF FIRST WAITING
At the bottom, they landed in a massive underground world. The ceiling glimmered with stars that were not stars — tiny openings into other realities. The cave walls were black stone, streaked with white lines forming perfect geometric shapes.
And there — at the center — was the drum.
It stood upright like a monument. Carved from red obsidian and bone, covered in unreadable symbols that shifted when stared at too long. It had no drumsticks. No striker. No dents.
It had never been hit.
But it still pulsed with rhythm.
Brughan whispered, "How can a drum have a heartbeat if it has never been played?"
Salemadon stepped forward. "Because this drum does not make sound when struck. It makes sound when it chooses."
Althara's voice trembled. "And what happens if it chooses?"
Salemadon looked at her quietly. "Then silence ends."
THE GUARDIAN WITHOUT SHAPE
A slow, tall figure formed beside the drum. Not smoke. Not light. Not flesh. It shaped itself like a man but had no face — just a blank surface reflecting whoever looked at it.
Althara saw herself. Brughan saw himself.
Salemadon saw someone else.
The faceless guardian spoke in layered tones — like many voices talking in the same breath:
"Bearer of Pahtem… why have you come?"
Salemadon answered without fear. "To ask the rhythm why it calls."
"The rhythm calls you because you are loud inside. But quiet in the soul. That is the balance."
Brughan whispered to Althara, "I don't like poetry without faces."
The guardian turned toward him.
"I am not poetry. I am instruction."
Brughan shut his mouth.
THE TEST
The guardian raised a hand toward Salemadon.
"If you wish to know the rhythm… you must place your ear against the drum."
Althara gasped. "He said not to touch memories! Now he wants to hug a drum?"
Salemadon smiled faintly. "Not hug. Listen."
He pressed his ear against the surface.
The moment he did, the pulse stopped.
Total silence.
No shaking ground. No rhythm. No hum.
For 3 seconds, nothing existed but stillness.
Then the drum glowed red and white at once — twin energies swirling like your cover art's ribbons.
Inside Salemadon's mind, a single sentence echoed, clear and heavy:
"You are the sound the drum is waiting for."
He stepped back, eyes open but distant.
Althara rushed to him. "What did it say?!"
Salemadon exhaled slowly. "It said… the drum has not been played because the player has not arrived."
Brughan frowned. "And who is the player?"
Salemadon turned, white cape shifting behind him like motion in wind.
"Me."
THE WARNING
The guardian placed its hand on the drum — it did not pulse for him.
"Do not strike it until the 50th silence breaks. If you do… even Pahtem cannot save the aftermath."
Salemadon nodded. "Then I will not strike it today."
The guardian dissolved.
But before disappearing fully, it said one last thing:
"The drum remembers you, Salemadon. Even before you remembered yourself."
ASCENT
They climbed back up in silence, minds heavy.
When they reached the surface, the crack sealed itself slowly behind them like a mouth closing after speaking.
Althara sat on the grass, staring at the sky. "A drum waiting to be played by someone born for sound… that's insane."
Brughan lay back too. "At least it didn't rhyme again."
Salemadon stood tall, looking at the Gemini constellation above, shining exactly like on your book cover.
"The drum was not insane," he said softly. "It was patient."
Then, the wind brushed past him, carrying a quiet tremor, like the faintest beginning of a beat.
Not from the ground this time.
From his destiny.
The drum was bigger than a house. Older than memory. And if it ever sounded… every world would stop breathing.