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"Let us not delay," said Rasalased. "Speak as you were."

"Are you sure Abbas will be okay?"

"Of course. Do not let him distract you, Young Hector. Speak as you were. With your soul's priority in hand."

Uh. Hmm. "You're being kinda pushy, Rasalased..."

"Am I? My apologies, then. I have not felt so eager in an Age. My curiosity may be getting the better of me. I mean not to alarm you, Young Hector."

Hector stuck on that. "In an Age, huh?"

"Indeed."

That was a peculiar statement to make, Hector thought. Having only recently become more interested in history, Hector may not have been fully knowledgeable about the subject of Ages, but he did know that they were currently in the Seventh Age and that the Sixth Age--a.k.a. the Late Imperial Age--had been marked by the collapse of the last great empire, the Mohssian Empire.

As he understood it, Ages were not demarcated by a specific amount of time passing but instead by major historical events. The Seventh Age, therefore, did not yet have a similar nickname of consensus among historians--and probably wouldn't until the Eighth Age rolled around.

However, no Age thus far had been less than six hundred years, and they were currently only on the 291st year of the Seventh Age--or 291 7A--so it was a fair bet that this one would last for a while longer yet.

As Hector recalled, according to Garovel, Rasalased was well over a thousand years old but not more than two thousand, which would've placed his birth pretty deep into the Sixth Age but not quite the Fifth, a.k.a. the Conquering Age.

It was perhaps a strange direction for Hector's mind to wander off into, but it did put things into perspective quite a bit. And it made him want to ask Rasalased all sorts of questions about history.

Heh. Then again, he did have an even older reaper to ask. He had a feeling Garovel might get jealous if he started consulting Rasalased about history, instead.