The Shadow grew progressively stronger and denser as the Samnians made their way along the corridor towards the Shadowbeast, and Resalintas felt it weighing heavier and heavier on all the goodness in his soul the further they went.

     In a way, it was something of a comfort to him, reminding him of just how much goodness he still possessed, despite its constant erosion by the Shadow, his rakhood and the power of the Bone Prince, but now not even the fact that he was undead was protecting him from the feelings of hopelessness and despair to which all good creatures entering the Shadow were subject and he began to have serious doubts about their ability to carry out the mission. Malefactos had made it all the way to the beast’s presence, of course, but he had been evil enough to make him virtually immune to the Shadow’s malaise. The Samnians were not. It was a horrible paradox, the Samnian rak realised with a grim humour. Only a priest of Samnos could speak the Holy Words needed to destroy the Shadowbeast, but it was good people who had the greatest difficulty in reaching its presence. The beast had protected itself well.

     It was getting harder to see as well, another thing Malefactos had reported from his mission into the Shadow. Their rak vision, which had, until then, allowed them to see in the total absence of light, was finally beginning to fail them as the corridor grew dark and gloomy, and they had to concentrate fully to make sure they didn’t miss the opening they were looking for. If they missed it, they might waste a lot of time trying to work out where they’d gone wrong, and time was not something they had a lot of.

     Resalintas suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that time was passing faster than they realised. A lot faster. Was the Shadow also affecting his perception of the passage of time? The moment the thought entered his head he was suddenly certain of it, and he felt a certainty that the knowledge came from Samnos. His God was warning him that they had less time than they thought. How much time had already passed? he wondered. How much time is left until sunset?

     Fortunately, they found the opening, exactly where Malefactos had said it would be, and they found themselves making their way slowly and cautiously down a long, narrow corridor at the end of which was the Shadowbeast itself. The Shadow was now so strong that the Samnians were staggering forward one step at a time, their bodies bent over as though they were carrying a heavy burden almost too great to bear, and their desiccated, skull like faces were set in expressions of terrible effort and concentration.

     “I don’t think I can make it,” gasped Vasta in desperation. “The Shadow’s too strong.”

     “It’s not much further,” replied Kharsh. “Keep trying.”

     “But it gets stronger with every step we take! I can’t make it!”

     “You will try,” said Resalintas sternly, pausing to allow Vasta to catch up with him. “There is no shame in failing, only in giving up. We will go on until the Shadow crushes us flat on the floor.”

     “But what’s the point?” cried Vasta, sobbing in despair. “How can we speak Holy Words in a place like this? And what good would it do if we could? You don’t really think we can blow a hole in this, do you?” He waved a shrunken, clawlike hand to indicate the Shadow, which now had almost the consistency of treacle.

     “We will do what we can,” snapped back Resalintas furiously, “and if we fail, we fail. The one thing we will not do is despair. Despair is the ultimate sin. The one sin that can never, and will never, be forgiven. Remember that you are a priest of Samnos and act like one.”

     Vasta stared at him, and then nodded, making a great effort to draw himself upright. Resalintas nodded in satisfaction, and the two of them walked side by side as they forced their way through the now almost solid Shadow.

     By the time they finally reached the door at the end, their vision had failed altogether and they had to grope around in the darkness for the latch. Resalintas lifted the latch and slowly and cautiously pushed the door open. Somewhere on the other side something stirred and shifted, something so huge that it seemed impossible that it could fit inside the courtyard. They heard the slopping, oozing sound of something stirring uneasily in a pool of slime.

     “When you go in,” said Resalintas calmly, “do not take more than a step or two away from the door. Form a line up against the wall. Remember that the thing in there can swallow a rak with a single gulp. It’s bound in place, but I’m not sure how much freedom of movement it has. Don’t take any chances.” He heard voices in reply saying that they understood, but the Shadow distorted the sounds so that he couldn’t tell for sure who it was who had spoken. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, and he stepped inside.

     He remained by the door, using his hand to feel each priest as they passed through and giving them a gentle shove sideways towards the wall. He counted seven, all the Samnians present and accounted for, and then he closed the door again, hearing the latch click as it closed. Well, here we are, he thought. We made it here. All we’ve got to do now is do the job.

     They could hear the beast shifting and stirring very close to them, almost close enough that they felt they could reach out a hand and stroke its obscene, slimy flank. “Prepare yourselves,” said Resalintas, pressing himself back against the wall. “Prepare to put all your heart and soul into the attack. Don’t think about holding anything in reserve for a second attempt. If the first one fails, subsequent attempts are unlikely to do any better. We’ve got to make the first one count. Tell me when you’re ready.”

     There was a brief pause, during which he sensed the raks praying silently and clearing their minds of all impure thought. He heard a splash as someone stamped his feet nervously in the ankle deep slime. “Ready,” said Dorth after a moment.

     “Ready,” added Renda a moment later.

     “Ready,” said a third rak, and then the others, one after another, until they had all spoken up. They were all ready. This was it, Resalintas realised. The moment that would decide the fate of the planet. It was all up to them, and what happened in the next few moments.

     “Ready, then,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “On the count of three. One, two...”

     They all spoke simultaneously. Spoke a word of such holiness and power that the Shadowbeast screamed in their minds, jerking convulsively against its bonds as it suffered an agony greater than any it had ever known. Above them, the Shadow leapt and boiled as though it were a sheet of water into which a large rock had been dropped and for a moment its swirling rainbow colours were visible once more, illuminating a vast, heaving bulk that almost filled the huge courtyard. That one glimpse of the Shadowbeast was enough to paralyse them with horror and Resalintas cursed himself for a fool, remembering too late Malefactos’s account, delivered second hand by Tragius. Malefactos had spoken of the moment when he’d had the merest glimpse of one of the beast’s awful appendages and the unnerving effect it had had on him. Even on Malefactos himself! I should have warned them, he chided himself bitterly as he heard their cries of outrage and horror. I should have told them to look away.

     The Shadow soon began to close in again, though, the beast apparently having suffered no lasting harm from the holy attack. “Again!” cried Resalintas, forgetting his earlier words about the probable futility of a second attack. “Don’t look at the beast! Look up into the sky instead! On the count of three! One, two...”

     Again they spoke the Holy Word, and again the beast screamed as the Shadow boiled above them. Resalintas was delighted to see that the swirling, rainbow colours of the Shadow were brighter than they had been the first time, indicating that the Holy Words were having a cumulative effect. That was something he hadn’t dared to hope for. Now if only they could speak enough Holy Words... But channeling and directing that amount of holy power, especially in this most unholy of places, was draining their strength at a tremendous rate, so much so that even Resalintas himself wasn’t sure if he could stay on his feet long enough. One more Holy Word might drain him to the point of collapse. I must find the strength! he thought with grim determination. Samnos will help me. I must have faith that He will not let me fail.

     “Again!” he cried, his clawlike, bony hands clenched into fists and his teeth gritted as he summoned up all his remaining willpower. “As many times as you can! Hit it with everything you’ve got!”

     He spoke another Holy Word, no longer caring whether they spoke in unison any more, and he heard some of the others doing the same. There was a splash as someone collapsed into the slime, overcome by the effort, and he felt Vasta leaning on his shoulder for support. A gray haze danced before his eyes, telling him that he himself was almost used up, and still the Shadow was intact above them. Thinned, and boiling madly in response to the tremendous amounts of holy power being unleashed beneath it, but still intact. Still shielding out the lethal rays of the two suns. Resalintas looked up at it, the tiny, burning points of light that served him as eyes dimming as an unfamiliar sensation began to steal over him. The acknowledgement of defeat.

     Then he straightened in disgust, angry at himself. A priest of Samnos is not defeated until he is dead, he told himself sternly. I will speak another Holy Word. Just one more, unless my body explodes with the effort. He looked up again. The Shadow was intact, true, but it was stretched as tight as a drum. One more Holy Word might be all it took to puncture it.

     All the other raks had collapsed. Resalintas was standing alone. He dug deep into reserves of strength he hadn’t known he possessed, reserves that formed a vital part of his very soul and that had never been meant to be used in this way. He sensed that he was endangering the survival of his very soul by plundering it in this way, but he didn’t care. What he’d said to Major Sorrell back in Bula Pass was something he believed to the very core of his being. All priests of Samnos are prepared to sacrifice their lives in the fight against evil. A willingness to sacrifice his very soul was merely an extension of the same principle. He took the strength he needed, therefore, with no thought for the consequences to himself, looked straight at the Shadowbeast with no thought for his sanity, and spoke the Word.

     Brilliant, blinding light burst into the courtyard as the Shadow tore open at last, admitting the light of the yellow sun, and for a split second the Samnian had a clear, unobstructed view of the Shadowbeast. Any other man, in any other circumstances, would have been driven insane by the sight, but Resalintas was saved by the very plundering of his soul that had endangered it. He was only partly conscious, and there was almost no comprehension behind the glowing points of light that served him as eyes. He gazed stupidly and thoughtlessly at the obscene, blasphemous nightmare that almost filled the courtyard, therefore, and watched impassively as it dissolved, screaming, in the purifying light of the yellow sun. Above him, the tattered edges of the Shadow flapped and fluttered like a hole in a wind-battered tent and drew back, widening to reveal an expanse of cloudless blue sky.

     What was left of Resalintas’s consciousness exulted, crying out words of joy and praise to Samnos. They’d done it! They’d achieved the impossible! He was no longer capable of understanding exactly what they’d done, his soul was wounded and weakened to the point where it was almost incapable of rational comprehension, but he sensed that he’d done something good, something necessary, and he was glad. Foul slime washed around his knees, almost bowling him over, and he grew even gladder. Everything was going to be all right!

     Something rose from the dissolving remains of the Shadowbeast, though. Something dark and awful. It rose up in wisps and curls and gathered a hundred feet above the ground where it throbbed and pulsated like a monstrous black heart. It hung there for a few moments as if gathering its strength, and quivered as if it had just been released from a torment too great for any sane mind to endure. Then it moved, floating over to where the lone priest still stood amongst the bodies of his fallen comrades.

     It dropped to float before him, and as it did so it changed, gradually assuming the form of a man, tall and gaunt, his thin face twisted into an insane fury. It spoke, spitting words of acidic venom into the Samnian rak’s face, and then seemed surprised when he received no reaction. He quickly realised what had happened, though, and cast a spell on the Samnian rak. A spell that replaced the strength Resalintas had plundered from his own soul and repaired the damage he’d done to himself.

     Full consciousness and rationality soon returned, and Resalintas gazed in wonder at the knee deep lake of putrescent slime that filled the courtyard, sparkling in the golden light of the yellow sun. Then he noticed the tall, gaunt newcomer and a look of alarm flashed briefly across his shrunken, mummified features, vanishing almost immediately as he regained control over himself. “Algol,” he said, recognising the description Malefactos had given Tragius.

     “Aye,” replied the demon rak, glaring his insane fury at the Samnian rak. “This is thy doing, I perceive. I have healed thy soul. Not out of mercy but because I want thee to be fully aware of the punishment I am soon to visit upon thee.”

     He broke off as he realised that the tattered edges of the Shadow had almost passed out of sight behind the walls of the courtyard and he hurriedly cast another spell. The edges of the Shadow were soon pulled back into place and the hole above them closed like a wound being sewn up by a surgeon. A look of dismay settled on Resalintas’s face as the light of the yellow sun was shut out again and darkness fell, and Algol laughed aloud when he saw it.

     “Aye!” he cried in jubilant exultation. “I have the power to hold the Shadow closed until another Shadowbeast can be brought in. Didst thou think it was the only one? Fool! Vast herds of the creatures roam the Pit! Thou hast caused us nothing more than a minor inconvenience! And that was thy last desperate attempt to stop us, an attempt for which thou hast drawn together all the most powerful inhabitants of this world. Dost thou see now that nothing thou canst do can stop us? Dost thou see now that thou art defeated?” It laughed again, a hideous, insane laughter that reflected only a tiny fraction of the madness that now had the demon rak in its grip.

     Around them, the other Samnians were beginning to stir, and Kharsh stared in astonishment when he became aware of the demon rak. “Algol,” explained Resalintas. “We inadvertently freed him from the Shadowbeast, inside which he was still being digested. We have to destroy him somehow.”

     “How?” asked Kharsh. “I don’t know about you but I’m as weak as a kitten.”

     “Me too,” replied Resalintas, “but there must be a way. There must...”

     “What!” exclaimed Algol in outrage. “Thou still dost not admit defeat? It seems I shall have to explain thy position in more detail.”

     He cast another spell, and suddenly they were in the audience chamber, the bone dome arching high over their heads while the dusty, bone strewn rubble of the room’s original dome littered the floor. Algol crossed over to the powdery remains of the two Shadowraks the Eeii had destroyed there and stirred them about with his foot, a look of disappointment on his face. Then he went over to the remains of the undead slaver. A ghostly nimbus of light was dancing over the torn and tattered tissue as supernatural forces began the task of reforming the creature, and the demon rak watched with interest for a few moments before turning his back on it and returning to the Samnians. “They shall also be punished,” he said, “but first I shall deal with thee. Thou art the ringleaders, and so thou shalt suffer the worst of my displeasure.”