Anodos also finds his shadow, an evil presence that follows and torments Anodos throughout the rest of the story. Anodos finds a large palace with many rooms, including a bedroom labelled as his own. In the palace library, he reads the story of Cosmo of Prague. Cosmo is a believer in fantasy who sacrifices his life to free the soul of his lover from an enchanted mirror. Anodos spends much time in the palace. He comes upon corridors filled with still statues. Anodos explores the halls and realises that the statues dance in the halls, and return quickly to their pedestals when he enters. He dreams of the marble lady, that she alone has an empty pedestal among the statues. He later finds this pedestal and sings to it. The marble lady materialises on the pedestal, but flees him. Anodos follows, going into a strange subterranean world with gnome-like Kobolds that mock him. Anodos escapes this place and finds himself on the beach of a stormy sea. A boat takes him to an "island" with a cottage with four doors which is inhabited by an ancient lady. Anodos enters each door in turn, each containing a different world. In the first he becomes a child again, remembering the death of his brother. In the next door he finds the marble lady and Sir Percivale in love. Here Anodos makes a last outburst of his love for the marble lady. The next door recounts the death of a loved one of Anodos, and he finds his family mausoleum. Finally, Anodos travels through the last door ("the door of the timeless") but is saved by the ancient lady without remembering anything. The ancient lady says that because she saved him, he must leave via an isthmus before the island sinks underwater. Next Anodos finds himself with two brothers who are forging armour and swords in order to fight three marauding giants living in a fortified stronghold. Anodos joins them in their fight, but they are ambushed by the giants unprepared. The brothers die in the fight, but Anodos lives, killing the giants and becoming a hero of the kingdom. He journeys to tell a woman whom one of the brothers loved of the brothers' death, but along the way is captured by a manifestation of his shadow and imprisoned. Anodos escapes by the song of a woman whom he had met before