The Neverending Story (13 page)

“Then you’re leaving us?” Urgl asked.

“I have to,” said Atreyu. “There’s no time to be lost. Now I shall go to the Oracle. Farewell! And in the meantime take good care of Falkor, the luckdragon.”

With that he turned away and strode toward the Great Riddle Gate.

Urgl watched the erect figure with the blowing cloak vanish among the rocks and ran after him, crying: “Lots of luck, Atreyu!”

But she didn’t know whether he had heard or not. As she waddled back to her little cave, she muttered to herself: “He’ll need it all right—he’ll need lots of luck.”

Atreyu was now within fifty feet of the great stone gate. It was much larger than he had judged from a distance. Behind it lay a deserted plain. There was nothing to stop the eye, and Atreyu’s gaze seemed to plunge into an abyss of emptiness. In front of the gate and between the two pillars Atreyu saw only innumerable skulls and skeletons—all that was left of the varied species of Fantasticans who had tried to pass through the gate but had been frozen forever by the gaze of the sphinxes.

But it wasn’t these gruesome reminders that stopped Atreyu. What stopped him was the sight of the sphinxes.

He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest—he had seen beautiful things and horrible things—but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.

The two monsters were bathed in moonlight, and as Atreyu approached them, they seemed to grow beyond measure. Their heads seemed to touch the moon, and their expression as they looked at each other seemed to change with every step he took.

Currents of a terrible, unknown force flashed through the upraised bodies and still more through the almost human faces. It was as though these beings did not merely exist, in the way marble for instance exists, but as if they were on the verge of vanishing, but would recreate themselves at the same time. For that very reason they seemed far more real than anything made of stone.

Fear gripped Atreyu.

Fear not so much of the danger that threatened him as of something above and beyond his own self. It hardly grazed his mind that if the sphinxes’ gaze should strike him he would freeze to the spot forever. No, what made his steps heavier and heavier, until he felt as though he were made of cold gray lead, was fear of the unfathomable, of something intolerably vast.

Yet he went on. He stopped looking up. He kept his head bowed and walked very slowly, foot by foot, towards the stone gate. Heavier and heavier grew his burden of fear.

He thought it would crush him, but still he went on. He didn’t know whether the sphinxes had closed their eyes or not. Would he be admitted? Or would this be the end of his Great Quest? He had no time to lose in worrying. He just had to take his chances.

At a certain point he felt sure that he had not enough will power left to carry him a single step forward. And just then he heard the echo of his footfalls within the great vaulted gate. Instantly every last shred of fear fell from him, and he knew that whatever might happen he would never again be afraid.

Looking up, he saw that the Great Riddle Gate lay behind him. The sphinxes had let him through.

Up ahead, no more than twenty paces away, where previously there had been nothing but the great empty plain, he saw the Magic Mirror Gate. This gate was large and round like a second moon (for the real moon was still shining high in the sky) and it glittered like polished silver. It was hard to imagine how anyone could pass through a metal surface, but Atreyu didn’t hesitate for a moment. After what Engywook had said, he expected a terrifying image of himself to come toward him out of the mirror, but now that he had left all fear behind him, he hardly gave the matter a thought.

What he saw was something quite unexpected, which wasn’t the least bit terrifying, but which baffled him completely. He saw a fat little boy with a pale face—a boy his own age—and this little boy was sitting on a pile of mats, reading a book. The little boy had large, sad-looking eyes, and he was wrapped in frayed gray blankets.

Behind him a few motionless animals could be distinguished in the half-light—an eagle, an owl, and a fox—and farther off there was something that looked like a white skeleton.

He couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

Bastian gave a start when he realized what he had just read. Why, that was him!

The description was right in every detail. The book trembled in his hands. This was going too far. How could there be something in a book that applied only to this particular moment and, only to him? It could only be a crazy accident. But a very remarkable accident.

“Bastian,” he said aloud, “you really are a screwball. Pull your self together.”

He had meant to say this very sternly, but his voice quavered a little, for he was not quite sure that what had happened was an accident.

Just imagine, he thought. What if they’ve really heard of me in Fantastica!

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

But he didn’t dare say it aloud.

A faint smile of astonishment played over Atreyu’s lips as he passed into the mirror image—he was rather surprised that he was succeeding so easily in something that others had found insuperably difficult. But on the way through he felt a strange, prickly shudder. He had no suspicion of what had really happened to him.

For when he emerged on the far side of the Magic Mirror Gate, he had lost all memory of himself, of his past life, aims, and purposes. He had forgotten the Great Quest that had brought him there, and he didn’t even know his own name. He was like a newborn child.

Up ahead of him, only a few steps away, he saw the No-Key Gate, but he had forgotten its name and forgotten that his purpose in passing through it was to reach the Southern Oracle. He had no idea why he was there or what he was supposed to do. He felt light and cheerful and he laughed for no reason, for the sheer pleasure of it.

The gate he saw before him was as small and low as a common door and stood all by itself—with no walls around it—on the empty plain. And this door was closed.

Atreyu looked at it for a while. It seemed to be made of some material with a coppery sheen. It was nice to look at, but Atreyu soon lost interest. He went around the gate and examined it from behind, but the back looked no different than the front. And there was neither handle nor knob nor keyhole. Obviously this door could not be opened, and anyway why would anyone want to open it, since it led nowhere and was just standing there. For behind the gate there was only the wide, flat, empty plain.

Atreyu felt like leaving. He turned back, went around the Magic Mirror Gate, and looked at it for some time without realizing what it was. He decided to go away,

“No, no, don’t go away,” said Bastian aloud. “Turn around. You have to go through the No-Key Gate!”

but then turned back to the No-Key Gate. He wanted to look at its coppery sheen again.

Once more, he stood in front of the gate, bending his head to the left, bending it to the right, enjoying himself. Tenderly he stroked the strange material. It felt warm and almost alive. And the door opened by a crack.

Atreyu stuck his head through, and then he saw something he hadn’t seen on the other side when he had walked around the gate. He pulled his head back, looked past the gate, and saw only the empty plain. He looked again through the crack in the door and saw a long corridor formed by innumerable huge columns. And farther off there were stairs and more pillars and terraces and more stairs and a whole forest of columns. But none of these columns supported a roof. For above them Atreyu could see the night sky.

He passed through the gate and looked around him with wonderment. The door closed behind him.

The clock in the belfry struck four.

Little by little, the murky light was failing. It was getting too dark to read by.

Bastian put the book down.

What was he to do now?

There was bound to be electric light in this attic. He groped his way to the door and ran his hand along the wall, but couldn’t find a switch. He looked on the opposite side, and again there was none.

He took a box of matches from his trouser pocket (he always had matches on him, for he had a weakness for making little fires), but they were damp and the first three wouldn’t light. In the faint glow of the fourth he tried to locate a light switch, but there wasn’t any. The thought of having to spend the whole evening and night here in total darkness gave him the cold shivers. He was no baby, and at home or in any other familiar place he had no fear of the dark, but this enormous attic with all these weird things in it was something else again.

The match burned his fingers and he threw it away.

For a while he just stood there and listened. The rain had let up and now he could barely hear the drumming on the big tin roof.

Then he remembered the rusty, seven-armed candelabrum he had seen. He groped his way across the room, found the candelabrum, and dragged it to his pile of mats.

He lit the wicks in the thick stubs—all seven—and a golden light spread. The flames crackled faintly and wavered now and then in the draft.

With a sigh of relief, Bastian picked up the book.

  ladness buoyed Atreyu’s heart as he strode into the forest of columns which cast black shadows in the bright moonlight. In the deep silence that surrounded him he barely heard his own footfalls. He no longer knew who he was or what his name was, how he had got there or what he was looking for. He was full of wonder, but quite undismayed.

The floor was made of mosaic tiles, showing strange ornamental designs or mysterious scenes and images. Atreyu passed over it, climbed broad steps, came to a vast terrace, descended another set of steps, and passed down a long avenue of stone columns. He examined them, one after another, and it gave him pleasure to see that each was decorated with different signs and symbols. Farther and farther he went from the No-Key Gate.

At last, when he had gone heaven knows how far, he heard a hovering sound in the distance and stopped to listen. The sound came closer, it was a singing voice, but it seemed very, very sad, almost like a sob at times. This lament passed over the columns like a breeze, then stopped in one place, rose and fell, came and went, and seemed to move in a wide circle around Atreyu.

He stood still and waited.

Little by little, the circle became smaller, and after a while he was able to understand the words the voice was singing:

“Oh, nothing can happen more than once,

But all things must happen one day.

Over hill and dale, over wood and stream,

My dying voice will blow away . . .”

Atreyu turned in the direction of the voice, which darted fitfully among the columns, but he could see no one.

“Who are you?” he cried.

The voice came back to him like an echo: “Who are you?”

Atreyu pondered.

“Who am I?” he murmured. “I don’t know. I have a feeling that I once knew. But does it matter?”

The singing voice answered:

“If questions you would ask of me,

You must speak in poetry,

For rhymeless talk that strikes my ear

I cannot hear, I cannot hear . . .”

Atreyu hadn’t much practice in rhyming. This would be a difficult conversation, he thought, if the voice only understood poetry. He racked his brains for a while, then he came out with: