The sounds of the Smithy rolled over me as I stood in the corner of the huge building, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of metal-working activity as people moved all around me. I had become more or less immune to the chaos over the years, even though my visits were still only monthly, and I was able to roughly follow the intricate patterns that governed the workflow around me: Ingots of metal melted and mixed to create alloys in one area; hammered into shape, heated, and quenched in other areas; sharpening, polishing, storage, etc, each in their own places, all radiating out from the Central Forge (like spokes of a gigantic wheel) where my father worked.

The exact definitions of a lot of words were likely quite different from how things had worked back on earth, but I hadn't been familiar enough with blacksmithing to know the difference. Here, a Blacksmith was a professional adult who, like Jaws, worked one of the forges (a forge was a place, or a workstation, that had anvils, furnaces, and quenching (cooling) barrels all located within convenient reach of the person working there). Then there were the Apprentices, who spent less time working at a forge and more time smelting and mixing metals to make the ingots used at the forges, as well as attaching handles, polishing, and grinding as necessary - all under the supervision of one of the Blacksmiths. Finally, there were the Assistants, who all seemed to be much younger than the rest (but still a lot older than me), that spent the majority of their time helping the Apprentices with their tasks.

"You are so lucky to be Master Toly's kid, little Heller. I bet he teaches you all his secrets!"

My attention was drawn to Aben, the black-furred boy who was next to me; he was one of the Assistants here at the Smithy, and was often assigned to watch over me on my monthly visits. He seemed to be well-liked and trusted by the Apprentices who interacted with him, which gave me the impression that this babysitting duty was more of an honor than a burden. Everyone around us was quite busy with their own tasks, while Aben and I were stationed at one of the unused forging stations that had a good view of the Central Forge - the largest and apparently most prestigious of the forges - and watched my dad (aka Jaws, aka 'Master Toly') at work.

Then again, I was very different from a regular child, and he would have had to pay far more attention to keeping me out of trouble if I was some other brat. Did I mention how dangerous the Smithy was for a kid? Did I even need to mention it? There were so many things around here that could hurt, maim, or kill a small child like me that I still found it hard to believe I was allowed to be here in the first place. No wonder Mom had put up such a fuss that first time! (Although she had calmed down now, and even seemed happy when she handed us our prepared lunches for 'Smithy Day'.)

I decided not to reply to Aben's comment (there didn't seem to be much point), and thought back to what we had been speaking about earlier. I had an easier time getting some information from my babysitter than from my parents when it came to some of the stranger topics and questions that occurred to me, mostly because he was always somewhat distracted watching Jaws work.

"So you are sure that there is only one City?" I asked him, revisiting a topic that had come to my attention a few weeks ago.

Aben laughed and gave me an incredulous look, "What would that even mean? How could there possibly be anything other than the City?"

I paused as I attempted to parse his answer (or lack of answer), and I started to wonder if my understanding of the word that I had thought meant 'city' was correct. From what I gathered, it was a place where a lot of people lived, and it was safe and wealthy compared to all the villages. It was the seat of power where important decisions were made, it had buildings that were a lot larger than we had here, and, as far as we could tell, it was the place where Mark lived. Was that not a 'city'?

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"Alright, well maybe it would have a different name than "The City", but is there another place that is like it, but built in a different location?"

"Built? What are you talking about!? The City has always existed, it was never built by anyone," Aben rolled his eyes at me, as if the very idea was ludicrous, "now stop asking me such dumb questions and watch Master Toly work!"

I sighed and turned back towards the Central Forge. Aben wasn't a bad kid, but I had the impression that my questions were so far above his understanding that he just saw them as the nonsense ramblings of an infant. Which was, overall, a good thing, as it let me ask about topics that I would hesitate to bring up with my parents, and he gave fairly detailed answers when he did grasp what I was seeking to know.

Over the course of the past few years I had spent a lot of time and effort acting like a precocious child who picked things up very quickly, while simultaneously hiding any 'exotic' knowledge from my old life on Earth. I disliked having to act like that in front of my parents, and there were times when I seriously considered telling them everything, but Mark was adamant that we had to keep it secret. I didn't exactly disagree with him, but we lived in very different situations, and I could tell he had trouble understanding why all the secrecy was so difficult for me. Regardless, for the time being I had resolved to keep the details of my reincarnation strictly to myself... but, privately, I harbored a strong desire to tell my family everything if, and when, I could be certain that it was safe to do so and it that the reveal wouldn't cause any undue harm.

Even working under these restrictions, I had picked up a lot of interesting details about my new home as my parents adjusted to the increasing complexity of my questions (I had overheard them talking about how much smarter than other kids I was, but it was painfully obvious that they were full of pride and joy rather than suspicion). Many of the things I learned only deepened the mysteries surrounding me, and I ran into a lot of dead-ends in my investigations when I hit upon topics that were outside the knowledge base of my new civilization (or at least outside the knowledge of the people I had access to) - like what had just happened with Aben.

Among the many things I had learned was that there was only one 'City' in the entire land, which was ruled by four Noble Houses that (allegedly) equally shared the power and responsibility to rule over the whole world. Or, at least, the whole 'known world' (as Mark and I called it), although we were unable to find anyone who could verify that there was more 'world' beyond what was 'known', and even trying to broach the topic was an exercise in futility and frustration... Instead, what we learned was that our land was bounded by endless (and completely impassable) natural barriers on all sides, and the general teaching was that this was the entire world – mountains stretched forever to the north and south, the sea stretched forever to the west, and there was a deadly valley in the east that was like a pit to hell nobody had ever returned from.

Another oddity was that there was no word for ‘Country’ or ‘Empire’. There was only one land, and only one 'people' inhabiting that land – all else was wilderness, and death. When I asked how large the land was, Mom replied that it stretched from the Sunset Mountains to the south to the Sunrise Mountains to the north, and from the Valley of Shadows to the east to the Bloody Pass to the west (from which one could see the endless ocean on a clear day). The world was apparently shaped like a squashed oval, with the mountains relatively close to the north and south, while the ocean and the impassable Valley of Shadows were further away to the west and east.

Those few brave explorers who had ventured forth over the years had either confirmed the belief that there was nothing else out there, or, far more commonly, never returned at all.