The air in the Oke-Aro quarter was a palimpsest of tragedy. Beneath the fresh, clean scent of newly cut wood and the damp, earthy smell of turned soil meant for rebuilding, the ghost of smoke still lingered. It was a stubborn stain on the wind, a constant, acrid reminder of what had been lost. Moremi moved through the skeletal frames of new huts, her senses acutely tuned to this dissonance. The hopeful sounds of construction—the rhythmic chop of axes, the scrape of adzes shaping wood, the cheerful calls of laborers—felt fragile, a thin veneer over a deep and festering fear.
She was dressed not as a queen, but as a woman of high birth fallen on hard times. Her wrapper was of fine, but slightly faded, purple-dyed cotton, and her head was tied with a simple, matching gele. A single strand of coral beads around her neck hinted at a past status, now perhaps diminished. She had rubbed a subtle ash into the hem of her garment and the edges of her sleeves, a carefully crafted narrative of a noblewoman seeking refuge with distant relatives, her pride forcing her to maintain a semblance of dignity amidst ruin. It was a lie woven with the threads of truth, and it sat heavily upon her.
Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs, its rhythm a secret counterpoint to the steady, purposeful work going on around her. Every laugh from a worker, every cry of a child, felt like a precious, fleeting thing she was about to betray. She watched a young man hauling a bundle of thatching grass, the muscles in his back corded with effort, and she thought, I do this for you. She saw a group of women winnowing grains, their chatter a soft, domestic music, and she thought, I do this for you.
The sun climbed, a bright, merciless eye in a sky too blue for the darkness she was courting. She positioned herself near the edge of the rebuilding efforts, close to the tree line where the ordered world of Ile-Ife frayed into the wild, tangled embrace of the forest. This was a known raid path. The blackened scars on the earth, the splintered remains of a watchtower, all pointed to it. Here, she was a deliberate splash of color against the monochrome of grief and recovery, a single, ripe fruit left out for the harvesting.
Hours bled into one another. The initial, razor-sharp tension began to dull into a weary, aching anticipation. Had she misjudged? Would they come at all? The rational part of her mind whispered that this was folly, that she should return to the palace, to Ọranyan's arms, to Ela's warm, sleeping weight. That part of her was a screaming, desperate thing, clawing at the walls of the prison her resolve had become.
But then, the forest fell silent.
It was not a gradual quieting. It was as if a great, invisible hand had been clapped over the mouth of the world. The cheerful shouts of the workers died mid-sentence. The birdsong, the constant insect hum, the rustle of unseen creatures in the undergrowth—all of it ceased. The silence was a physical presence, thick and heavy, pressing in on the eardrums. It was more terrifying than any alarm drum.
Moremi's breath caught in her throat. This was it. The prelude. Her mouth went dry, her palms damp. She forced her hands to unclench, to hang loosely at her sides. She was a queen. She was the supplicant of the Esimirin. She was bait. She could not afford to be a frightened woman.
And then she heard it.
A rustling.
It started as a whisper, so faint it could have been the wind teasing the leaves of a banana plant. But there was no wind. The air was utterly still, the heat pressing down like a woolen blanket. The sound grew, swelling from a whisper to a soft, dry susurration, like a thousand snakes sliding through dead grass. It came from the forest, a wave of sound that seemed to emanate from the very shadows between the trees. It was the sound Idowu had described. The sound of raffia.
Panic erupted in the quarter. A single, high-pitched scream cut through the unnatural quiet, and then chaos broke loose. The workers dropped their tools, their hopeful construction forgotten. Mothers scooped up children, their faces masks of primal terror. People scrambled, tripped, and fled towards the inner city, a frantic, screaming river of humanity flowing away from the tree line. They left behind a landscape of abandoned labor: a half-woven basket, a cooling pot of porridge over a dying fire, a single, small leather sandal lost in the rush.
Moremi stood her ground.
Her legs trembled, threatening to buckle, but she rooted her feet to the scorched earth. She was an island in the fleeing tide, a statue of deliberate defiance. She focused on her breathing, drawing the silent, frantic air into her lungs, forcing it out slowly. The blessing of the Esimirin was not a physical shield; it was a fortification of the spirit. She felt it now not as a power, but as a profound, unnatural calm that settled over her terror like a sheet of ice over a churning lake.
From the deep gloom of the forest, they emerged.
The Ugbò. The Ará Ọ̀rùn.
They were taller than any man, their forms elongated and distorted by the thick, overlapping layers of dried raffia that sheathed them from head to foot. The material was a dull, dusty brown, the color of dead things, and it rustled with every synchronized, jerking step, creating that horrifying, dry chorus. Their movements were wrong—stiff, yet fluid in an alien way, as if their joints bent in places a human's did not. They did not run; they advanced, a slow, inexorable tide of whispering menace.
And their faces. Just as Idowu had said. Smooth, dark wood, polished to a faint sheen, utterly blank. No eyes to convey malice or intent. No mouth to utter war cries or commands. Just featureless, ovoid masks that seemed to absorb the sunlight, reflecting nothing. It was like being regarded by a forest of dead trees given malevolent life.
They moved through the abandoned quarter, their raffia-clad feet making no impression in the soft earth. They did not pursue the fleeing people with any great urgency. Instead, they began their systematic work. A raffia-clad arm, ending not in a hand but in a bundle of sharpened, hardened wood, swept a clay pot from a hearthstone. It shattered with a crash that was obscenely loud in the silence. Another used a weapon of dark, polished wood to slice through the support posts of a half-built hut, sending the structure collapsing in a cloud of dust.
They were efficient, silent, and utterly terrifying.
Moremi's heart hammered against the cage of her ribs, a wild bird trying to escape. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to hide, to join the frantic flight to safety. She closed her eyes for a brief second, calling upon the memory of the green, swirling water, the chill of the spirit's voice. A great truth for a great sacrifice.
She opened her eyes.
One of them had stopped. Its blank, wooden face was turned towards her.
It was slightly taller than the others, and the raffia of its body was threaded with faint, almost invisible strands of a darker fiber, like veins of black running through dead grass. It stood, utterly still, while its companions continued their work of quiet destruction around it. The rustling of the others formed a macabre backdrop to this new, focused silence.
Moremi held its gaze, or rather, held the space where its gaze would be. She did not look away. She forced her expression into one of serene composure, masking the primal fear that slicked her skin with cold sweat. She was a noblewoman, unafraid. She was the chosen of the Esimirin, protected.
The leader—for she knew it was the leader—began to walk towards her. Its steps were not the aggressive strides of a captor, but something more measured, almost curious. The dry rustling of its form was the only sound as it closed the distance between them. The smell that accompanied it was not of sweat or earth, but of ancient, sun-bleached reeds, of dusty attics, of forgotten, dry places.
It stopped an arm's length from her. So close she could see the fine, intricate grain of the dark wood of its mask. So close she could see that the raffia was not simply tied on, but seemed to grow from the form beneath, a second skin of dried vegetation. There were no visible seams, no gaps. It was a perfect, terrifying whole.
It tilted its head, a slow, bird-like gesture. The blank mask studied her. Moremi's blood ran cold, but she did not flinch. She stood, a statue of purple cloth and coral beads, her chin held high, her breathing, to her own astonishment, even and calm. The Esimirin's blessing was at work. It was not making her invisible or invulnerable; it was making her… compelling. It was amplifying her presence, her aura, making her a puzzle to this creature of instinct and silence.
The leader raised an arm. Moremi's breath hitched, expecting a blow, the bite of a wooden blade. But the appendage that emerged from the rustling sleeve of raffia was not a weapon. It was a configuration of raffia and smooth, dark wood that vaguely resembled a hand, but with too many long, articulate fingers. It moved slowly, deliberately, towards her face.
She forced herself to remain perfectly still as those strange, wooden digits came within inches of her cheek. They did not touch her. They hovered there, as if feeling the heat of her skin, the vitality that radiated from her, so alien to their own desiccated existence. The silence from the creature was profound. The rustling of its brethren seemed to have softened, as if they, too, were watching.
Then, the leader did something entirely unexpected. It lowered its hand and gave a soft, clicking sound, not from a mouth, but a vibration that seemed to emanate from its entire chest. The sound was picked up and repeated by the others, a series of clicks that rippled through the group, a language of wood and dry reed.
Two of the other Ugbò detached themselves from their tasks and moved to flank Moremi. They did not grab her roughly. They did not bind her hands. They simply stood on either side of her, their blank faces forward, their presence a clear command.
The leader made a gesture with its long-fingered hand, a fluid motion towards the forest.
It was time.
Moremi took a step, her legs feeling like water. Then another. The two Ugbò fell into step beside her, their rustling a constant, intimate whisper in her ears. The leader walked ahead, clearing a path. They were not treating her as a prisoner of war. There was a strange, awed reverence in their demeanor, a caution one might use when handling a sacred, but potentially dangerous, relic.
She walked with them into the edge of the forest. The transition from sunlight to shadow was abrupt, like stepping into another world. The cool, damp air of the woods closed around her, a stark contrast to the sun-baked clearing. The dense canopy overhead filtered the light into a dim, greenish gloom. The silence of the forest was now absolute, broken only by the soft, crushing sound of their footsteps on the leaf litter and the ever-present, rustling symphony of the Ugbò.
She dared one last look over her shoulder.
Through a break in the trees, she could see the distant, sunlit walls of Ile-Ife. The palace, a mere speck from this distance, seemed to gleam for a moment, a final, fleeting beacon of everything she was leaving behind. She saw the tiny, ant-like figures of her people still fleeing to safety. She saw the world she knew, the world of order and love and light.
Then, the forest swallowed the view.
A thick curtain of hanging lianas and broad, waxy leaves fell behind her, obscuring Ile-Ife forever. The familiar was gone. She was now in their world, a world of whispering raffia, blank wooden faces, and shadows that held secrets no human was meant to know. The calculated capture was complete. The queen was gone. Only the spy, the supplicant, the sacrifice, remained, walking steadily forward into the heart of the unknown.