Isa’s Idea

Isa looked around. The whole area was infested. She should never have come to Nmaksom. These vain fools would be useless in her plans. She sighed. Well, perhaps she might be able to fulfill a different goal. Isa looked around again. The loudest sounds seemed to come from behind her. Time to see if she had completely wasted her time, or if something could be scraped from this waste of a trip.

Isa went in the direct opposite direction of the majority of the sound. When judging where to go, always go away from the fools. Her mother had been wise in at least one aspect. If only she had listened years earlier… But it was too late to think of the irreversible past. Never do anything you would regret telling your children about. Well, that had gone out the window as well. If only she had been smarter as a youth.

“AH!” Isa yelled, frustrated by her mind constantly taking her back to her dark past. She needed a drink, but she knew better. Quiet place, quiet place, quiet place Isa kept repeating to herself. She found herself running in the streets, seemingly trying to outrun her past. She knew better than that, but her feet always kicked in instinctively at times like this. Her subconscious did as well apparently. Although lost, she suddenly found herself at the place she wished for most – a library. She breathed a sigh of relief. Before stepping into the magnificent, pillar held building, she looked around again. The fools carried on as though they had not a care in the world. She smiled, knowing none of them would be in this haven; none of them could grasp the importance of such a building.

Isa walked into the library. Dead silent, just as she expected in such a place. Nmaksom was a sultanate technically. However, the Sultana had largely lost control to the native population of Undines. These disgusting creatures manipulated the masses and took control, thinking only of what was most convenient for themselves. Isa hated them. She hated them to her core. They had accomplished what she had been unable to thus far – power. The Undines, manipulative as they were, were not intellectually based, and thus, their power was only temporary. Isa had larger aspirations. She instinctively walked towards the back, where the thickest books were usually held, untouched for decades.

She suddenly stopped. An unlikely intruder in this hell hole – a man. And from the looks of it, a learned man. He sat at a table, with at least 10 books laid around him, with an even larger pile sitting behind him. He seemed deep in research moving from one book to the next, feverishly writing in a notebook. Perhaps there was something to be gained from this trip after all.

Hours had passed. Sometime after Isa had walked into the room, the man had noticed someone watching him. He seemed startled at first, but quickly opened up. Isa said nothing, yet the man had already told her in depth about his research regarding the Black Turtle. The man had been hopping from land to land doing research on each areas largest deity. They were currently in the Land of Water, where the largest organized religions told of a god, black as night, but who swam in the “Gen Sea”, the largest fresh water supply on the continent. This turtle, the man told her, is said to keep the sea fresh and fertile, giving life to all creatures, but taking life away as well. The locals, however, feared and revered the turtle, and felt that he could take their life as well, should he so wish. Most of the natives, the undines, were originally came from this sea, and generations back were said to have lived alongside the Great Turtle, the Turtle having sired all children of the Undine. However, when the women moved to the land, they lost touch with the ways of their ancestors and no longer gave birth to “true Undine” – those untainted without outside blood. As such, the Turtle forsake his blessings, and since, the women have always been fighting with infringing peoples in their land for power. Thus far, the local Undine have managed to keep power and using unknown magicks, subjugated harems of men for procreative purposes. These men lived in dungeons deep under the palace, under a deep hypnotic sleep under which they could take orders, but not act on any free-will.

Mithal told Isa all of this with great gusto, stating how although this was all rumor and lore, there is always truth to any outrageous story and how he was here to get to the core of the facts. Isa contemplated on this thought. She also added the phrase to the long list of phrases her mother had taught her. Every story, no matter how ridiculous, sprouts from a seed of truth. However, if there was truth to this story, that might mean hoards of unconscious men, lost in their own dreamworld, were being held captive in the city. This might also be the kernel that was the exaggeration in the story. There was only one way to find out, and Isa smirked as an idea came to mind.