From his dark tower in the wastelands, The Destroyer stared up at the stars and wondered what was there.

    The people of his world called him a devil king, but he had the powers of a god.  He had raised his tower in a day, using his magic to rip the stone out of the earth and weld it into shape.  That, at least, he remembered doing.

    His memory had a lot of gaps.

    He could not, for example, remember where his army came from.  It was vast, conquering one of the Four Continents in less than a year.  The second of the Four Continents had fallen in half that time.  It was only a matter of weeks before the third would fall, and then it would move on to the fourth.  With each new conquest his army became bigger and stronger.  As far as he could tell, this was good.

    He just had no memory of having recruited or created it in the first place.

    The Destroyer had a lot of time to think and reflect.  He spent his days alone, sitting on his throne waiting for something to happen.  Every few days, one of his generals would come in and report something.  And then they would be gone, and he would be alone again.

    As he sat on his throne in contemplation, he realized there were other strange gaps in his mind.  He knew he had to conquer the world, but he had no idea what to do with it once he was done.  His conquered territories were used for replenishing and growing his army, but otherwise he left them alone.

    And then there were his generals.  Only some of them had names.  For a long time that didn’t seem odd – after all, that was how it had always been.  He didn’t have a name either.  Some people just had titles.  But now, The Destroyer was starting to think that didn’t make much sense.  Why didn’t all of them have names?  Why didn’t he?

    One of his nameless generals entered and bowed.  “The hero has killed General Bringer-of-Darkness,” he reported.

    The Destroyer rose from his throne.  “He will pay for his insolence!” he roared.  “Let it be known that anybody who kills the hero will be rewarded with ten times their weight in gold!”

    The general bowed and left.  The Destroyer blinked.  Why had he been so angry?  He hadn’t even heard of General Bringer-of-Darkness before today.  And aside from which, the hero hadn’t done anything that would even slow down his forces yet.  The conquest of the Third Continent was moving according to schedule.

    Does the hero have a name?  The thought was so jarring that The Destroyer didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he exhaled again.

    That night, he returned to the top of the tower and stared out at the stars.  There were other worlds out there, he was certain of it.  And he could travel to them – all it would take was a brief exercise of his power, and he would be launched into the void, infinitely faster than the light from the stars he was watching.

    And then it caught his eye.  Something bright streaked through the night sky, heading from one star to another.  With a wave of his hand and an intonation, he brought his scrying power to bear on it.  His eyes widened – it was a person, a woman, by the looks of it, doing precisely what he had just been contemplating.  Whoever it was, she was far away – so far that it would have taken the light of her passage at least four years to reach him.

    For the first time that he could remember, The Destroyer smiled.  The conquest of the world could happen without him for a while – he couldn’t even recall the last time he had issued a proper order to his armies.  He would follow this explorer’s example, leave this world and see what was in another one.  And to start, he would see the world that she had journeyed to.

    With a brief exercise of his power, The Destroyer left his world and streaked through the void.  As the new world opened up in front of him, he wondered if he would want to conquer it too.

NEXT: “Princess Stellaria”