the ground around him. His voice rose, the wind increased, and the aura of energy that crackled around his outstretched fingers grew alternately brighter and dimmer. The power began to pulsate with regularity, each succeeding pulse growing brighter than the one before, each drawing more life out of the vegetation all around him.
The waving, brown desert grasses that had grown up on and around the mounds and all across the plateau turned black and shriveled into compost The wildflowers that grew on the hillsides and gave a beautiful array of bright colors to this barren world withered and died as the life was leeched from them.
Timor trembled as the energy he robbed from the vegetation around him flowed into his outstretched hand and spread throughout his entire body. He felt exhilarated, vibrant with power. The lifeforce of the plants infused him, sluiced through him, filled him with a warmth and vitality that was addicting. He wanted more. He wanted it never to stop.
The desert succulents, the long-spined cacti that stood four times as tall as a man and took at least two centuries to reach full maturity, softened and became flaccid, flopping over onto the ground with loud thuds and decomposing in a matter of seconds. The jade bushes drooped and shed their fleshy, paddle-shaped leaves as they turned first brown, then black, then crumpled to the ground like bits of ash. The blue pagafa trees growing on the slopes, their thick, dense trunks and branches almost as hard as rock, dropped their tiny, blue-green leaves and began to split as the moisture was drained out of them. With loud, popping cracks, they splintered and fell, as if struck by invisible bolts of lightning. In a wide swath all around the templar, everything withered and died and decomposed, leaving behind a desolation even more barren than the sandy washes of the tablelands.
Timor gave no thought whatever to the wanton destruction that he caused. He was focused solely on the sheer, lustful pleasure of feeling all that warm, life-giving energy surging through his being. This was the lure of true sorcery, he thought, the heady rush of sensual power that the preservers, with their pathetic, weak philosophy, would never understand. This was what it meant to truly feel alive!
It was a pleasure that could only dimly be perceived in the consumption of an excellent meal prepared by the finest cooks, or in the exquisite release of sexual fulfillment. This was the full measure of the satisfaction that could be found in the complete satiation of the senses. It was the ultimate indulgence, the intoxication that only a true mage could ever know. It was what drove the sorcerer-kings to follow the painful route of metamorphosis that would turn them into dragons, whose capacity for power was greater because their hunger and their need for it was also greater. He wanted it never to end.
But it had to end. He was not yet king, and there was only so much energy he could contain. When he felt that he could absorb no more, he stopped and simply stood there for a long moment, wanting to stretch it out, vibrating with the force that filled him, his muscles spasming so hard he thought his bones would break. Every nerve fiber in his body sang with an exquisite pain. His lips were drawn back from his gums, his features twisted in ecstasy as he stood with his head thrown back, gasping for breath and trembling. Not yet, not yet—he thought—make it last! Hold onto it for just a little while more…
And then when he could not bear it any longer, he had to release it all or risk being consumed by it. With an effort, he brought his gaze back down to his spell-book. His hand was shaking so hard that he could barely hold it still. He reviewing the last words of the spell, he closed his eyes, finished the incantation, and released the power.
The power surged through his outstretched arm and burst from his fingers in sheets of blue flame. It struck the ground and made fissures in the earth that spread out like a fine network of veins and capillaries all through the cemetery. Timor’s breath whooshed out of him and everything started spinning around him as he teetered on the edge of consciousness. It was like the most profound sexual release, only magnified a hundredfold. It left him feeling utterly drained as he collapsed to his knees and gulped in