Infinity (Chapter 2)

Luck like this was somewhat rare for Rabente`, to think in his worst moment a sword (and not just any sword at that) would appear from out of nowhere to save his life, suffice it to say he wasn't expecting that at all. He was certainly counting his blessings, although the confusion hadn't subsided yet either, he doubted it would any time soon. He was looking down at the sword in his hands now, noticing his own reflection gazing back at him sternly as though trying to figure himself out. He hadn't needed to so much as point his newly acquired weapon at his earlier attackers before they'd fled, now much less angry than what they'd seemed, spitting apologies and carrying on about how they wouldn't tell anyone. They obviously knew how this blame system worked between the elves and men, the vermin. He saw himself smirking again, amused at their cowardice, and he started to think of how nice the sword looked in his grip. The sword itself was quite large, definitely wider than the one he had lost on the bridge earlier, but it's length was about the same. He was happy with this because the medium length of his old sword had worked for him very well, he liked alternating between using his sword with one hand or two, depending on the situation. This meant even when fighting one handed he never carried a shield. Rabente` just figured if you wield the sword proficiently enough you wouldn't need one.

He let out a long sigh and let his head roll forward as he lowered the sword to his side, just holding it there somewhat awkwardly, with nowhere to sheath it. It had a decent weight about it, not terribly heavy but he could do without lugging it about in his hands at the current moment, especially when he was as tired as he was now. It felt like it didn't belong to him, and as far as he knew, it didn't. But what else was he to do? He couldn't have just left it on the bridge. His mind swam with questions, like what was the face he saw in the flash of light? How did this sword even get here? Why did he have it now? What did any of this mean? He lifted his head and took another look at the sword. It's hilt was covered in engravings, and so was the opposite side of the blade itself from which he'd been staring into earlier. He squinted at the markings and cocked his head to one side as though trying to make out a shape. Words? Something was written on the side of the blade, in fact there was something written all the way down. He tilted his head straight again and leaned in forward a little as he brought the blade closer to his eyes. Still squinting at the mysterious writing, he muttered under his breath "Are these names?". It looked to be all a list of names, some common, some less so, none of which stood out to him. Were they members of some kind of group? What did they have to do with the sword? Maybe he could find one of them and learn something. But to do that he would probably need to travel far away from the forest. He shook his head and before making any decisions too quickly, he knew the smart choice, no... the wise choice, would be to show the sword to his mentor, Manbarta.

Only about an hour had come and gone since Rabente` entered the forest, and he relaxed his shoulders as he came upon the familiar trail leading home, almost there now. A weathered path stretched out in front of him, the soil under his feet felt harder than it had before, typically elves rarely left much of any impression on the ground where they walked, but the dragon knights of Rabente`s home wore heavy grieves around their legs, to match the rest of their proverbial outfits. It made sense the path so close to home would feel a little more compacted underfoot. Whole parties of knights would often use this trail when making their way to town and beyond. True that the elves had access to airships, the same as any other race, and the dragon knights themselves flew across the open skies on dragon back, the distance traveled to town wasn't nearly far enough to warrant either of these methods. The town lacked any sort of docking station for an airship anyway, being only a small town and self-sufficient at that, if you wanted to go there by ship you would need to anchor it down outside of the town walls while still in flight, it was really far too much hassle. As for the dragons, most humans had never even seen one, the dragon knights not caring to hear a bunch of noise about it from the gormless humans every time they wanted to visit the town's markets and such, just felt it was less trouble to hike instead of fly.

Rabente` often thought about how exciting it would be to tag along one day with the dragon knights, sometime when they would take flight beyond the small town he'd just taken such efforts to come home from. And though even if he was the Dragon Princes protege after a fashion, he was still only human, and physically couldn't travel the way elves can, particularly the trained and seasoned dragon knights. Elves had a knack for travelling amazing distances in a single day, even without the aid of their dragons, he considered how in the time it had taken him to make it this far from town, exhausted and ready to nestle up against a soft pillow or two in his bed, a dragon knight would likely have made their way through the forest and even passed the elven city of Lamberdon, where he and they all lived, seemingly with energy to spare. He stared blankly at the road in front of him, and pushed on, thinking about the sword once more and now feeling like all he wanted to do was sleep.

The trees cleared and Rabente` stepped out onto the edge of a cliff that overlooked a beautiful scenery. Vast fields that stretched for as far as the eye could see, covered in hills and trees. There were rivers and lakes here and there scattered about, and rocks large enough to hide behind. If you looked closely enough you could make out the shape of wild life moving across the open plains, it was always remarkable, even for one who'd lived their entire life here. Not far beyond all of this, was Rabente`s destination. A city stretched all the way across a fairly flat part of the land, and opposite from the side of the city Rabente` stood from was more forest. The elven city of Lamberdon, home. Rabente` stood before the landscape and took in a deep breath of the crisp air while appreciating the view. The last of the days warmth rested on his face as he witnessed the sun beginning to envelope itself behind the horizon, it would become dark soon. With a heave he lifted the sword he'd found over his shoulder and grinned as he noticed in the now orange sky, the silhouette of dragons flying from the other side of the plains back to Lamberdon. Dragon Knights coming home for the day no doubt. His eyes followed them as their magnificent figures suddenly disappeared from all visibility, where now Rabente` gazed upon a much more incredible view. Towering high above, so tall in fact one could not easily make out it's peak for searching, was a mountain. A mountain so unfathomably wide that one might not even realize it was indeed a mountain at all, until of course you noticed it's immeasurable height. To Rabente`s eyes it's peak was simply invisible. He saw plenty of trees, snow, and clouds, but where the mountain ended was a complete mystery. He wondered if even the Dragon Knights he'd just been admiring could fly that high... "Probably not..." he thought to himself with a light shrug.

The mountain cast a long shadow on much of the land in the mornings and afternoons, to be expected of course, but it was a trivial fact when you remembered the sun would soon be gone for the day anyway. But as the sun was setting Rabente` noticed lights starting to appear along what he guessed was around it's midsection (still quite a bit higher up than he would have expected). For squinting at it hard enough you could make out this particular section of the mountain to be relatively flat, and actually even had some small lakes and rivers, and not just in one little section, but in fact all the way around the mountain. The longer Rabente` stared the more lights would appear out of no where, it began to look like a belt wrapped around the mountains middle. A belt of lights and small clouds of smoke, it was hard to tell through the day light hours, but when nightfall came it was easy to see that up there was an entire civilization. He wondered if the villages up there stretched all the way around the mountains perimeter like the rivers and lakes did, though not for terribly long however, as this was something Rabente` saw quite frequently, every day of his life in fact.

The truth of the matter was that this enormous structure was known across Finito by all as Mount Zodiac; one of the five domains of the gods, and thus was made with the intention of being an entire world of sorts. Like Mount Zodiac in which he'd been gazing at, the forest Rabente` knew as home was one of these five domains, though the forest was inconspicuous and quite a bit out of the way, where the mountain was without a doubt the largest landmass in all of Finito, and was visible from anywhere in all the land. It was quite fitting when you came to realize that the mountain itself was created by none other than Odian himself, the one whose face Rabente` believed himself to have witnessed in the flash of light from earlier, he was the eldest and most powerful of the five gods. In light of the mountains origins, the weinoc were the ones to claim the mountain as their home, and they were the ones who lived around the mountains middle. They were a race of proud and powerful warriors, each marked with a unique facial tattoo they called birth scars from the day of their births. They were mysterious and culturally very different from men or elves, and each weinoc, whether they be man, woman, or child had a bond with the mountain unlike any other race in all of Finito could know with their own domain. The weinoc didn't live alone on the mountain either, or so it was said, that at and around the very peak of Mount Zodiac was another race of beings. Though few in number, it was said that tall statue like people whose bodies were as stone and as though chiseled from the very mountain itself known as the zodians lived there, and what their purpose was in being there was anybodies guess. Rabente` thought to himself, that he would very much like to see a weinoc or a zodian some day... some day, though it was time to get a move on.

Lamberdon was like any other city, busy and full of tall buildings. There were markets full of elves either looking for goods or trying to sell them, and several large commercial airship docks with elves coming to and leaving the city many times a day. Rabente` entered town and tried to keep a low profile as best as he could. Everyone in town knew him of course, but with this new sword in hand and nowhere to sheath it... he'd rather not deal with the questions and attention right now, especially after the day he'd just been through. He walked rather quickly through the streets, knowing his way around he took the shortest route he could to get to where he lived. Side stepping the occasional merchants wagon or groups of elves who seemed to be standing around for no good reason. Even while trying to keep his head down he nodded politely to any elf who managed to make eye contact with him, and even threw a few smiles around to anyone who bowed their head in his direction. Being raised by the elven royal family made him into somewhat of a celebrity around Lamberdon, though he cared little for his status. He wasn't really a prince or anything after all, he didn't even know who he himself was, just some orphan taken in by elves. Though orphan or not he was popular, too much so. It was almost amusing to him how different it was from the human town he'd visited earlier that day, they seemed to hate him for all the reasons the elves liked him. Trying to make his way home there were always elves who called out to him, despite never having anything important to say. He quickly turned a corner and pretended not to hear a voice he didn't recognize calling out to him, he was used to this, why couldn't they just let him walk home in peace?

Across the bazaar and a few more streets down and finally he was home. Twilight was just ending now too. His legs ached and he stepped off the street, all ready starting to unclip his cloak from his shoulder. Any other human would have gawked confusedly to see Rabente` walk up to what appeared to be any other house in Lamberdon, though it was several stories tall, it didn't look like any royals household. But then this was not the way of elves to live so luxuriously. All anyone needed to know was an elven prince lived here and so this was a house for a prince, simple enough. Rabente` breathed in the wafting smell of home cooking, not very different from standard elf living but servants were one perk most didn't get. Manbarta was wise and capable but certainly didn't do chores, let alone cooking. It smelt like rissoles tonight, his favourite. He smiled to himself and decided he'd better address Manbarta now before dinner was ready. "Manbarta!", he called out unraveling the last of the chains from around his cloak. "I'm home. I need to show you something". A gruff voice shouted back from down the hall
"I'm in the study." Probably waking up if he knew Manbarta.

Rabente` made his way to the open door frame and leaned against it looking down at his mentor, whom to no surprise was rubbing his eyes tiredly, not looking terribly concerned with what he'd just told him. "Are you even awake?" Rabente` asked him sarcastically with a smirk.
"No," he replied bluntly, slightly irritated at his young proteges cheek. He looked up and made a face, "you look like you've been in a fight..." Manbarta didn't sound impressed, though they just stared at each other for a moment.
"Not that I was, but there's something really important I need to show you." He shifted on the spot. He'd been hiding the sword from Manbarta's view, keeping hold of it just outside of the inner space of the door frame. Manbarta just stared at him with his brows furrowed when he turned his attention to Rabente`s arm, clearly holding onto something. He looked back up to his eyes
"What have you got there...?" Manbarta asked slowly. Rabente swallowed and took a step inside the room where his mentor sat at the desk. For some reason he felt apprehensive, he felt as though Manbarta would be mad for some reason, though he couldn't think why. As he stepped forward with an uncertain look in his eyes, he pulled the sword in front of himself. He gripped the hilt in his hand and rested the edge of the blade in his other palm gently. He held it up, clearly for Manbarta to see. He didn't look at the sword, he just stared forward at his mentor with a solemn gaze that told Manbarta that he had no idea how to answer his question.

It was silent for a moment, Manbarta had seemed to awaken rather quickly after being shown the sword. His jaw fell open slowly, and his eyes ran all over the sword. The length of it, it's width, the shape of it, the hilt, it's hook like edge and most of all, the engravings along it's side. As if reading each of the names engraved along the side of the blade, Manbarta's eyes quickly darted back and forward as they scaled down the it's length. His mouth widened in disbelief. Rabente` was starting to think that his mentor might actually know something about all of this. Though he didn't move, and actually felt obligated now to continue holding the sword still for Manbarta to look it over better, his expression now relaxed. The apprehension he'd felt just a moment ago had seemed to subside now, and he waited patiently to hear what his mentor knew. Manbarta looked at him again and there was a short pause before he spoke. "Rabente`... have you ever truly wanted to know who you are?" It was a strange question to hear from him. He'd always wondered who he was but it wasn't something he ever really talked about, not even with Manbarta. He lowered the sword slowly and brought it back to his side.
Cautiously he asked, "What does that have to do with this sword?"
"Just about everything, my friend." Manbarta replied softly, staring into Rabente`s eyes, "Look at the last name written on that sword."
Rabente` did as instructed and let his eyes cascade down the list of names that meant nothing to him, until his gaze met the last name,"I-it's Ruben." Rabente` stammered a little confused now.
"Your true father's name," Manbarta declared very matter of factually.

"How do you know that?" Rabente` demanded, suddenly feeling skeptical. "What is this thing?" he lifted the sword in front of himself as if to scrutinize the claim and he continued. "How could anyone possibly glean that from this?" He gestured to the sword with his gaze while wearing a look of mild outrage. Rabente` didn't exactly know himself why he was so upset, he supposed he just wanted to know more, but it had been such a terribly long and tiring day. He lowered the sword and shut his eyes tight, and Manbarta spoke in a father like tone. "Why don't you sit down, lad? Sit with me for a while and we can talk all about this." He brought his hand to Rabente`s forearm and with a firm grasp pulled him in close and looked him in the eyes "Tell me everything that happened today."