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. Once I was committed to jumping, the stairs winked
out one by one as I passed over them.
I was certain Mask's thinking must be- that if I had a handle on the
local power, reflex would cause me to betray that connection here. And if I
didn't it might still cause me to waste an escape spell.
But I judged the distance to the now-visible floor. If no more stairs
vanished I might be able to catch a handhold on the next one, hang a moment,
then drop. That would be perfectly safe. And if I missed, or if another
stair vanished . . . I still felt I would land reasonably intact. Better to
use an entirely different sort of spell on the way down.
I caught the rearward edge of the farthest stair, dangled and dropped,
turning my body and speaking the words of a spell I call the Falling Wall.
The fountain shuddered. The fires sloshed and splashed, overflowing the
basin on the side nearest Mask. And then Mask himself was thrown backward to
the floor as my spell continued its course of descent.
Mask's arms rose before him as his body seemed to sop up the swirling
glow, his hands to expel it. There was a bright arc between his hands, then
a shieldlike dome. He held it above him, warding off the final collapsive
force of my spell. I was already moving quickly in his dirsction. Even as I
did so, Jurt appeared before me, standing on the far lip of the fountain
just above Mask, glaring at me
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