The Neverending Story (10 page)

“Most inopportune!” said the angry buzzing after a time. “What do you want of Ygramul? As you can see, she is very busy.”

“I want this luckdragon,” said Atreyu. “Let me have him.”

“What do you want him for, Atreyu Twolegs?”

“I lost my horse in the Swamps of Sadness. I must go to the Southern Oracle, because only Uyulala can tell me who can give the Childlike Empress a new name. If she doesn’t get one, she will die and all Fantastica with her—you too, Ygramul.”

“Ah!” the face drawled. “Is that the reason for all the places where there is nothing?”

“Yes,” said Atreyu. “So you too know of them. But the Southern Oracle is too long a journey for a lifetime. That’s why I’m asking you for this luckdragon. If he carries me through the air, I may get there before it’s too late.”

Out of the whirling swarm that made up the face came a sound suggesting the giggling of many voices.

“You’re all wrong, Atreyu Twolegs. We know nothing of the Southern Oracle and nothing of Uyulala, but we do know that this dragon cannot carry you. And even if he were in the best of health, the trip would take so long that the Childlike Empress would die of her illness in the meantime. You must measure your Quest, Atreyu, in terms not of your own life but of hers.”

The gaze of the eye with the vertical pupil was almost unbearable.

“That’s true,” he said in a small voice.

“Besides,” the motionless face went on, “the luckdragon has Ygramul’s poison in his body. He has less than an hour to live.”

“Then there’s no hope,” Atreyu murmured. “Not for him, not for me, and not for you either, Ygramul.”

“Oh well,” the voice buzzed. “Ygramul would at least have had one good meal. But who says it’s Ygramul’s last meal? She knows a way of getting you to the Southern Oracle in a twinkling. But the question is: Will you like it?”

“What is that way?”

“That is Ygramul’s secret. The creatures of darkness have their secrets too, Atreyu Twolegs. Ygramul has never revealed hers. And you too must swear you’ll never tell a soul. For it would be greatly to Ygramul’s disadvantage if it were known, yes, greatly to her disadvantage.”

“I swear! Speak!”

The great steel-blue face leaned forward just a little and buzzed almost inaudibly.

“You must let Ygramul bite you.”

Atreyu shrank back in horror.

“Ygramul’s poison,” the voice went on, “kills within an hour. But to one who has it inside him it gives the power to wish himself in any part of Fantastica he chooses.

Imagine if that were known! All Ygramul’s victims would escape her.”

“An hour?” cried Atreyu. “What can I do in an hour?”

“Well,” buzzed the swarm, “at least it’s more than all the hours remaining to you here.”

Atreyu struggled with himself.

“Will you set the luckdragon free if I ask it in the name of the Childlike Empress?” he finally asked.

“No!” said the face. “You have no right to ask that of Ygramul even if you are wearing AURYN, the Gem. The Childlike Empress takes us all as we are. That’s why Ygramul respects her emblem.”

Atreyu was still standing with bowed head. Ygramul had spoken the truth. He couldn’t save the white luckdragon. His own wishes didn’t count.

He looked up and said: “Do what you suggested.”

Instantly the steel-blue cloud descended on him and enveloped him on all sides.

He felt a numbing pain in the left shoulder. His last thought was: “To the Southern Oracle!”

Then the world went black before his eyes.

When the wolf reached the spot a short time later, he saw the giant spider web—but there was no one in sight. There the trail he had been following broke off, and try as he might, he could not find it again.

Bastian stopped reading. He felt miserable, as though he himself had Ygramul’s poison inside him.

“Thank God I’m not in Fantastica,” he muttered. “Luckily, such monsters don’t exist in reality. Anyway, it’s only a story.”

But was it only a story? How did it happen that Ygramul, and probably Atreyu as well, had heard Bastian’s cry of terror?

Little by little, this book was beginning to give him a spooky feeling.

  ver so slowly Atreyu awoke to the world. He saw that he was still in the mountains, and for a terrible moment he suspected that Ygramul had deceived him.

But these, he soon realized, were entirely different mountains. They seemed to consist of great rust-red blocks of stone, piled in such a way as to form strange towers and pyramids. In between these structures the ground was covered with bushes and shrubbery. The air was blazing hot. The country was bathed in glaring sunlight.

Shading his eyes with his hand, Atreyu looked around him and discovered, about a mile away, an irregularly shaped arch, perhaps a hundred feet high. It too appeared to consist of piled stone blocks.

Could that be the entrance to the Southern Oracle? As far as he could see, there was nothing behind the arch, only an endless empty plain, no building, no temple, no grove, nothing suggesting an oracle.

Suddenly, while he was wondering what to do, he heard a deep, bronzelike voice:

“Atreyu!” And then again: “Atreyu!”

Turning around, he saw the white luckdragon emerging from one of the rust-red towers. Blood was pouring from his wounds, and he was so weak he could barely drag himself along.

“Here I am, Atreyu,” he said, merrily winking one of his ruby-red eyes. “And you needn’t be so surprised. I was pretty well paralyzed when I was caught in that spider web, but I heard everything Ygramul said to you. So I thought to myself: She has bitten me too, after all, so why shouldn’t I take advantage of the secret as well? That’s how I got away from her.”

Atreyu was overjoyed.

“I hated leaving you to Ygramul,” said. “But what could I do?”

“Nothing,” said the luckdragon. “You’ve saved my life all the same—even if I had something to do with it.”

And again he winked, this time with the other eye.

“Saved your life,” Atreyu repeated, “for an hour. That’s all we have left. I can feel Ygramul’s poison burning my heart away.”

“Every poison has its antidote,” said the white dragon. “Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see.”

“I can’t imagine how,” said Atreyu.

“Neither can I,” said the luckdragon. “But that’s the wonderful part of it. From now on you’ll succeed in everything you attempt. Because I’m a luckdragon. Even when I was caught in the web, I didn’t give up hope. And as you see, I was right.”

Atreyu smiled.

“Tell me, why did you wish yourself here and not in some other place where you might have been cured?”

“My life belongs to you,” said the dragon, “if you’ll accept it. I thought you’d need a mount for this Great Quest of yours. And you’ll soon see that crawling around the country on two legs, or even galloping on a good horse, can’t hold a candle to whizzing through the air on the back of a luckdragon. Are we partners?”

“We’re partners,” said Atreyu.

“By the way,” said the dragon. “My name is Falkor.”

“Glad to meet you,” said Atreyu, “but while we’re talking, what little time we have left is seeping away. I’ve got to do something. But what?”

“Have luck,” said Falkor. “What else?”

But Atreyu heard no more. He had fallen down and lay motionless in the soft folds of the dragon’s body.

Ygramul’s poison was taking effect.

When Atreyu—no one knows how much later—opened his eyes again, he saw nothing but a very strange face bent over him. It was the wrinkliest, shriveledest face he had ever seen, and only about the size of a fist. It was as brown as a baked apple, and the eyes in it glittered like stars. The head was covered with a bonnet made of withered leaves.

Atreyu felt a little drinking cup held to his lips.

“Nice medicine! Good medicine!” mumbled the wrinkled little lips in the shriveled face. “Just drink, child. Do you good.”

Atreyu sipped. It tasted strange. Kind of sweet and sour.

Atreyu found it painful to speak. “What about the white dragon?” he asked.

“Doing fine!” the voice whispered. “Don’t worry, my boy. You’ll get well. You’ll both get well. The worst is over. Just drink. Drink.”

Atreyu took another swallow and again sleep overcame him, but this time it was the deep, refreshing sleep of recovery.

The clock in the belfry struck two.

Bastian couldn’t hold it in any longer. He simply had to go. He had felt the need for quite some time, but he hadn’t been able to stop reading. Besides, he had been afraid to go downstairs. He told himself that there was nothing to worry about, that the building was deserted, that no one would see him. But still he was afraid, as if the school were a person watching him.

But in the end there was no help for it; he just had to go!

He set the open book down on the mat, went to the door and listened with pounding heart. Nothing. He slid the bolt and slowly turned the big key in the lock. When he pressed the handle, the door opened, creaking loudly.

He padded out in his stocking feet, leaving the door behind him open to avoid unnecessary noise. He crept down the stairs to the second floor. The students’ toilet was at the other end of the long corridor with the spinach-green classroom doors. Racing against time, Bastian ran as fast as he could—and just made it.

As he sat there, he wondered why heroes in stories like the one he was reading never had to worry about such problems. Once—when he was much younger—he had asked his religion teacher if Jesus Christ had had to go like an ordinary person. After all, he had taken food and drink like everyone else. The class had howled with laughter, and the teacher, instead of an answer, had given him several demerits for “insolence”. He hadn’t meant to be insolent.

“Probably,” Bastian now said to himself, “these things are just too unimportant to be mentioned in stories.”

Yet for him they could be of the most pressing and embarrassing importance.

He was finished. He pulled the chain and was about to leave when he heard steps in the corridor outside. One classroom door after another was opened and closed, and the steps came closer and closer.

Bastian’s heart pounded in his throat. Where could he hide? He stood glued to the spot as though paralyzed.

The washroom door opened, luckily in such a way as to shield Bastian. The janitor came in. One by one, he looked into the stalls. When he came to the one where the water was still running and the chain swaying a little, he hesitated for a moment and mumbled something to himself. But when the water stopped running he shrugged his shoulders and went out. His steps died away on the stairs.

Bastian hadn’t dared breathe the whole time, and now he gasped for air. He noticed that his knees were trembling.

As fast as possible he padded down the corridor with the spinach-green doors, up the stairs, and back into the attic. Only when the door was locked and bolted behind him did he relax.

With a deep sigh he settled back on his pile of mats, wrapped himself in his army blankets, and reached for the book.

When Atreyu awoke for the second time, he felt perfectly rested and well. He sat up.

It was night. The moon was shining bright, and Atreyu saw he was in the same place where he and the white dragon had collapsed. Falkor was still lying there. His breathing came deep and easy and he seemed to be fast asleep. His wounds had been dressed.