power

I don't know how many lives I've spent fighting her: her, her armies, her champion. Because every time I wake up and find myself in this world again, occupying another mind and another body for another lifetime, I am filled with this single purpose. She is my enemy, and her city must be destroyed.

She doesn't remember the countless lives we've fought, but she always knows me, somehow. Sometimes they know I am coming, from reading the signs and portents, others she seems to simply know at a glance that I am her foe, but no matter how cunning I am, she's ready. And however close I come, she prevails in the end. Her legend grows, and my defeat becomes just another song for her people to sing.

It's the same city every time, but the lands and the people are different. Sometimes even the languages change. And though I remember a hundred lives fighting--a thousand--ten thousand--I over the time the specifics fade. Only the defeat, the sting of the hero's blade, the burn of her magic. Those I will always carry with me.

I've arrived in her city and it is thriving, and for a moment the old feeling comes back: this is what I was made for. This city must burn. But this time something else has arrived with that feeling: the weariness of it all. After how many lifetimes fighting her, is it worth spending one more, only to fall in the end? Can I honestly convince myself that this is the time I finally win?

(A memory: one time I find her city but she isn't there. Or her heroes. The city burns so bright and beautiful, the smoke painting the sky in such beautiful shades at twilight, and even then an assassin's knife finds my back. Perhaps I set her back some, but even unopposed I still fail.)

I've been around for so long. I could be so much more than the would-be conqueror who fails time and time again. I could impart some of the wisdom of the ages to these people. If this city will stand anyway, I could make it a city worth standing.

***

Years pass. My wisdom draws her attention at long last, and she invites me to the palace, with her champion at her side, and she asks me if I would join her council. "The seers tell me that the destroyer's return is nigh," she says. "And if they do return, I will need your wisdom to fight them."

Some small part of me whispers, "This is our chance. We can betray her. We can destroy her. We can crush her champion. We can burn this city to ash." But it is so small, so quiet, I can almost not hear it over the stirring of pride in my heart. There is so much more we can do.

There is a chamber in the heart of the palace which will not suffer any of evil intent to enter, and she takes me there--the final initiation for all of her advisers. And though I am afraid, I am willing to take this risk--either I will be discovered, and I will die and return in another lifetime, or I will not, and I will be able to help her build.

Nothing happens when I enter. A priest anoints me with holy water and I become the princess's adviser.

***

We are both very old, now. The destroyer is past due now, they say. "Perhaps they are not coming," I suggest.

"Perhaps," she agrees. We have done so much together. Her city has become the shining heart of an empire, the most prosperous that ever existed.

"If the destroyer saw this city," I say, "even they would not wish it destroyed. It is too beautiful."

"Surely that would be a reason to wish it destroyed?"

"Perhaps," I tell her. "But I think it is so beautiful, so perfect, that no being, good or ill, could wish it harm. We have done the impossible."

The fear of the destroyer--the fear of me--inspired her to such great heights. And that legacy, I am certain, will continue for years. For centuries. This empire will never fall, certainly not to the likes of me. Not while its princess is so motivated.

And suddenly I understand what I must do to destroy her, and her kingdom.

I try to put the thought from my mind, but it refuses to leave. It stays until I am on my deathbed, and even then my last thoughts, after all I have built, are of the city burning, and how beautiful that will be.