He then learns that his substitute shadow does not grow and shrink when the sun is low or high, as it ought to, making it difficult to mix with ordinary people except at certain times of day.

Their priest dispels Ramon's false shadow but sends him back to retrieve his own – for without it his soul is in danger of damnation.

He tricks the magician into telling him some of the magic words needed to open the box where the shadows are kept, and works out the rest.

The magician despairs of finding a worthy apprentice, and sets out through Spain, drawing all creatures of magic and legend with him, and leaves for the Country Beyond the Moon's Rising, thus ending the Golden Age.

Reviewing the 1973 Ballantine edition, Theodore Sturgeon declared the novel to be one of the most potent early influences on him: "I love [the] book with an abiding passion as a perennial evocation of delight and humor and beauty".