For some reason, this time, the steel bit into solid matter, and the phantom jerked and thrashed. Kevin used his sword to roll the spider onto its back, then he kept pressure on the weapon until the ghastly thing stopped moving.

The squire needed to rest but knew he didn't have time. Panting and trembling, he cut the captives free.

Most of them, anyway. On closer investigation, he found that a couple were but dry, shriveled husks.

But the majority were alive. Some were even strong enough to help the weak ones along. Kevin reckoned that with luck, he could get them all out.

He nearly did.

Scouting ahead for shadows, he led the prisoners back the way he'd come. Once, as the procession passed beneath a tattered gonfalon, a toddler started to cry, and everyone froze in terror, certain the noise would bring shadows down on their heads. The child's mother quickly put her hand over his mouth, and no shadow came to investigate the sound. Later on, the fugitives came upon a bellpull, and a scrawny, gap-toothed fellow, who seemed a bit mad from his ordeal, stared at the velvet strap in fearful fascination, as if he didn't want to ring it but felt a compulsion to do so. The matron with the gray ringlets took him by the arm and led him on by.

At last Kevin spied the marble bust of a sharp-nosed, crafty-looking fellow siting on its pedestal. He'd noticed it coming in, and it meant that the exit into the Medusa's Garden was just ahead. He smiled, and a psychic shriek stabbed into his head.

Some of the prisoners cried out. Others clutched their heads and sobbed. Though equally pained by the silent caterwauling, Kevin yelled at them and shoved them. He had to keep them moving, had to get them out the door before their pursuers arrived.

He chivvied them down the long rectangular entrance hall and almost to the arched exit before instinct impelled him to look back. He couldn't see shapes, not yet, but the darkness boiled with movement. Shadows were pouring out of the doorways along the walls.

Kevin reckoned he needed to delay the phantoms for at least a few seconds. Otherwise, few if any of the captives would make it outside. He turned and tried to bellow a war cry, but it came out as more of a weary, frightened squeak. He strode toward the far end of the chamber, and a wave of shadow hurtled out of the gloom to meet him.

He drove his sword into a shadow's chest but never knew whether he'd slain it, for the next instant, the rest of them swept over him, and after that, he was no longer able to keep track of specific adversaries. There was only a pack, a many-limbed mass, striking and snatching at him from every side, as he lurched and whirled and slashed at it.

Once, for a split second, a narrow gap appeared in the mass, and Kevin glimpsed other devils loping toward the door. He wished he could intercept them as well, but knew there was no chance of it. Cold hands seized hold of his arms and shoulders, and the strength began to flow out of him.

Even as he struggled to pull free, other shadows clutched at him, and it was hopeless. He resolved not to scream, but did it anyway, sure the phantoms were sucking out the final traces of his life.

In time, he woke to cold rain spattering his face and hard, wet floor beneath his supine body. He pried open his gummy eyelids. Gray clouds floated directly overhead, but walls rose at the corners of his vision, as if he was in a pit. He tried to lift himself for a better look around but failed. He was horribly weak, and cold deep inside in a way that even his soaked attire couldn't explain.

"Young man!" someone whispered. "Don't move!"

He rolled his head to the side and saw the goodwife with the curly gray hair, who was also lying on the floor.

"Why not?" he whispered back.

"You'll provoke it!"

Somehow Kevin knew without asking what "if was. King Shadow. The lesser phantoms had borne him and his fellow human into the titan's lair. The fancy he'd scrawled inside the Cormyr Gate had more or less come true.

"Did the shadows recapture all of you?" he asked.

"No," the woman said. "Most of us made it out the door."

Kevin surprised himself by smiling. "Helm gave me good value for my penny then. Better than I had any right to expect."

The matron frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"It doesn't matter. Tell me where we are and what's going on."

"We're in a large chamber at the top of the keep. The roof is gone, and this huge… thing apparently makes its lair here."

"Go on."

The lesser shadows dumped us here for the monster to eat when it's ready, the same way you'd put down food for a dog. It already gobbled up Quinn and Evaine while you were unconscious."

"It's not gobbling us at the moment, and if it's not paying attention, perhaps we can slip away."

"It is paying attention. Evaine tried to sneak out, and that's when it snatched her up."

"Oh. All right, I understand. Now try to rest while I figure a way out of this."

"That's mad. If you were facing the way I am, if you could see the creature-".

"Ajandor, the knight I serve, taught me that if a man his head, he can think his way out of almost any peril, and I might as well try. Why not? What do we have to lose?"

The matron smiled. "When you put it that way, lad, not a thing. Think away."

Kevin lay and pondered, wondering what Ajandor would have done in his place, and if the knight had actually come looking for him. Probably not, for by the cold light of this joyless morning, he recognized that the trick he had attempted to play was a puerile one, born out of desperation rather than sense. No doubt the shrewd old man had seen through it at once and simply bade good riddance to the impudent ass who had hoped to gull him.

No, Kevin could only pray that Ajandor would come to his senses by himself, before his one-man campaign against the shadows destroyed him. His squire had another problem to address.

He waited until a little strength seeped back into his muscles, enough, he hoped, to stand, run around, and yell.

"I'm going to distract King Shadow," he said. "You get out of here. I'm hoping the other prisoners will follow your lead."

Her blue eyes widened. "But the shadow will kill you!"

"It's going to do that anyway."

She hesitated. "We'll still have all the smaller shadows, the ones shaped like men and cats and wolves, barring the way out of the fortress."

"Run. Hide. Throw rocks at them. Whatever it takes to get away."

She swallowed. "All right, and may Helm take you into his keeping. The knight you serve must be very proud of you."

Kevin smiled at a pang that had nothing to do with the mauling the shadows had given him. "Well, he used to be. Get ready."

He gave her a moment to gather her strength, then, wishing the shadows had left him his sword, he scrambled to his feet, and spun around.

As the matron had advised him, the room was big and essentially circular, with a ragged hole where the ceiling once had been. Scraps of it were lying about the floor, and painted pentacles adorned the plaster walls. In the middle of the space, taking up a goodly part of it, hulked King Shadow.

Kevin was prepared for the hugeness of the shadow and for the strangeness of its tangled limbs, like fat, flexible feathers writhing in all directions. However, he had had no inkling of the true nature of King Shadow's flesh. He hadn't been able to make it out when the titan drifted past high above his head.

Within the shadow's murky substance flowed human faces distorted and jammed together. Despite the stretching, twisting, and squashing, it was somehow possible to discern their grimaces of agony, madness, and rage. Ilmater's tears, was this what became of the people King Shadow destroyed? Did their souls wind up trapped inside the shadow's body?