Cyaxares sighed. "Where to begin?" she said. After a moment, she continued. "The place we refer to as the Oikoumene is the ancestral homeland of the ancient Elleneans, but it is only a small part of our world. The Oikoumene is made up of a group of closely packed continents surrounded by vast oceans, across which exist other such inhabited places-some perhaps even more populous than our own-all part of a great globe the Ancients called Eo. Further, the Ancients believed that Eo was only one of many worlds. Other realms. The world of you and your father, I believe, is one such other realm. And your father once explained to me that your world was but one small stone suspended in a vast void, infinitesimal within the encompassing expanse... Perhaps I will live long enough to study such a concept. For now, I can only approach it as a curious observer from a distance.