The Neverending Story (24 page)

He bent low over the book in which he was writing. His face was hidden by his hood.

“Then do what I ask.”

Submitting to her will, the Old Man of Wandering Mountain began telling the Neverending Story from the beginning.

At that moment the light cast by the pages of the book changed color. It became reddish like the letters that now formed under the Old Man’s stylus. His monk’s habit and the hood also took on the color of copper. And as he wrote, his deep, dark voice resounded.

Bastian too heard it quite clearly.

Yet he did not understand the first words the Old Man said. They sounded like: “Skoob dlo rednaeroc darnoc Irac.”

Strange, Bastian thought. Why is the Old Man suddenly talking a foreign language? Or was it some sort of magic spell?

The Old Man’s voice went on and Bastian couldn’t help listening.

“This inscription could be seen on the glass door of a small shop, but naturally this was only the way it looked if you were inside the dimly lit shop, looking out at the street through the plate-glass door.

“Outside, it was a gray, cold, rainy November morning. The rain ran down the glass and over the ornate letters. Through the glass there was nothing to be seen but the rain-splotched wall across the street.”

Bastian was rather disappointed. I don’t know that story, he thought. That’s not in the book I’ve been reading. Oh well, it only goes to show that I’ve been mistaken the whole time. I really thought the Old Man would start telling the Neverending Story from the beginning.

“Suddenly the door was opened so violently that a little cluster of brass bells tinkled wildly, taking quite some time to calm down. The cause of this hubbub was a fat little boy of ten or twelve. His wet, dark-brown hair hung down over his face, his coat was soaked and dripping, and he was carrying a school satchel slung over his shoulder. He was rather pale and out of breath, but, despite the hurry he had been in a moment before, he was standing in the open doorway as though rooted to the spot.”

As Bastian read this and listened to the deep, dark voice of the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, a roaring started up in his ears and he saw spots before his eyes.

Why, this was all about him! And it was the Neverending Story. He, Bastian, was a character in the book which until now he had thought he was reading. And heaven only knew who else might be reading it at the exact same time, also supposing himself to be just a reader.

And now Bastian was afraid. He felt unable to breathe, as though shut up in an invisible prison. He didn’t want to read anymore, he wanted to stop.

But the deep, dark voice of the Old Man of Wandering Mountain went on,

and there was nothing Bastian could do about it. He held his hands over his ears, but it was no use, because the voice came from inside him. He tried desperately to tell himself—though he knew it wasn’t true—that the resemblance to his own story was some crazy accident,

but the deep, dark voice went on,

and ever so clearly he heard it saying:

“ ‘Where are your manners? If you had any, you’d have introduced yourself.’ ”

“ ‘My name is Bastian,’ said the boy. ‘Bastian Balthazar Bux.’ ”

In that moment Bastian made a profound discovery. You wish for something, you’ve wanted it for years, and you’re sure you want it, as long as you know you can’t have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing.

That is exactly how it was with Bastian.

Now that he was in danger of getting his wish, he would have liked best to run away. But since you can’t run “away” unless you have some idea where you’re at, Bastian did something perfectly absurd. He turned over on his back like a beetle and played dead. He made himself as small as possible and pretended he wasn’t there.

The Old Man of Wandering Mountain went on telling and writing the story of how Bastian had stolen the book, how he had fled to the schoolhouse attic and begun to read. And then Atreyu’s Quest began all over again, he spoke with Morla the Aged One, and found Falkor in Ygramul’s net beside the Deep Chasm, and heard Bastian’s cry of fear. Once again he was cured by old Urgl and lectured by Engywook. He passed through the three magic gates, entered into Bastian’s image, and spoke with Uyulala. And then came the Wind Giants and Spook City and Gmork, followed by Atreyu’s rescue and the flight to the Ivory Tower. And in between, everything that Bastian had done, how he had lit the candles, how he had seen the Childlike Empress, and how she had waited for him in vain. Once again she started on her way to find the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, once again she climbed the ladder of letters and entered the egg, once again the conversation between her and the Old Man was related word for word, and once again the Old Man of Wandering Mountain began to write and tell the Neverending Story.

At that point the story began all over again—unchanged and unchangeable—and ended once again with the meeting between the Childlike Empress and the Old Man of Wandering Mountain, who began once again to write and tell the Neverending Story . . .

 . . .and so it would go on for ever and ever, for any change in the sequence of events was unthinkable. Only he, Bastian, could do anything about it. And he would have to do something, or else he too would be included in the circle. It seemed to him that this story had been repeated a thousand times, as though there were no before and after and everything had happened at once. Now he realized why the Old Man’s hand trembled. The Circle of Eternal Return was an end without an end.

Bastian was unaware of the tears that were running down his cheeks. Close to fainting, he suddenly cried out: “Moon Child, I’m coming!”

In that moment several things happened at once.

The shell of the great egg was dashed to pieces by some overwhelming power. A rumbling of thunder was heard. And then the storm wind came roaring from afar.

It blew from the pages of the book that Bastian was holding on his knees, and the pages began to flutter wildly. Bastian felt the wind in his hair and face. He could scarcely breathe. The candle flames in the seven-armed candelabrum danced, wavered, and lay flat. Then another, still more violent wind blew into the book, and the candles went out.

The clock in the belfry struck twelve.

  oon Child, I’m coming!” Bastian repeated in the darkness. He felt something indescribably sweet and comforting flow into him from the name and fill his whole being. So he said it again and again: “Moon Child! Moon Child! I’m coming! Moon Child, here I am.”

But where was he?

He couldn’t see the slightest ray of light, but this was no longer the freezing darkness of the attic. This was a warm, velvety darkness in which he felt safe and happy.

All fear and dread had left him, ceased to be anything more than a distant memory. He felt so light and gay that he even laughed softly.

“Moon Child, where am I?” he asked.

He no longer felt the weight of his body. He groped about and realized that he was hovering in mid-air. The mats were gone, and there was no ground under his feet.

It was a wonderful feeling, a sense of release and boundless freedom that he had never known before. He was beyond the reach of all the things that had weighed him down and hemmed him in.

Could he be hovering somewhere in the cosmos? But in the cosmos there were stars and here there was nothing of the kind. There was only this velvety darkness and a wonderful, happy feeling he hadn’t known in all his life. Could it be that he was dead?

“Moon Child, where are you?”

And then he heard a delicate, birdlike voice that answered him and that may have answered him several times without his hearing it. It seemed very near, and yet he could not have said from what direction it came.

“Here I am, my Bastian.”

“Is it you, Moon Child?”

She laughed in a strangely lilting way.

“Who else would I be? Why, you’ve just given me my lovely name. Thank you for it. Welcome, my savior and my hero.”

“Where are we, Moon Child?”

“I am with you, and you are with me.”

Dream words. Yet Bastian knew for sure that he was awake and not dreaming.

“Moon Child,” he whispered. “Is this the end?”

“No,” she replied, “it’s the beginning.”

“Where is Fantastica, Moon Child? Where are all the others? Where are Atreyu and Falkor? And what about the Old Man of Wandering Mountain and his book? Don’t they exist anymore?”

“Fantastica will be born again from your wishes, my Bastian. Through me they will become reality.”

“From my wishes?” Bastian repeated in amazement.

He heard the sweet voice reply: “You know they call me the Commander of Wishes. What will you wish?”

Bastian thought a moment. Then he inquired cautiously: “How many wishes have

I got?”

“As many as you want—the more, the better, my Bastian. Fantastica will be all the more rich and varied.”

Bastian was overjoyed. But just because so infinitely many possibilities had suddenly been held out to him, he couldn’t think of a single wish.

“I can’t think of anything,” he said finally.

For a time there was silence. And then he heard the birdlike voice: “That’s bad.”

“Why?”

“Because then there won’t be any more Fantastica.”

Bastian made no answer. He felt confused. His sense of unlimited freedom was somewhat marred by the thought that everything depended on him.

“Why is it so dark, Moon Child?” he asked.

“The beginning is always dark, my Bastian.”

“I’d awfully like to see you again, Moon Child. The way you were when you looked at me.”

Again he heard the soft lilting laugh.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I’m happy.”

“Happy? Why?”

“You’ve just made your first wish.”

“Will you make it come true?”

He held out his hand and felt she was putting something into it. Something very small but strangely heavy. It was very cold and felt hard and dead.

“What is it, Moon Child?”

“A grain of sand,” she replied. “All that’s left of my boundless realm. I make you a present of it.”

“Thank you,” said Bastian, bewildered. What on earth could he do with such a gift? If at least it had been something living.

As he was mulling it over, he felt something wriggling in his hand. He raised his hand to see what it was.

“Look, Moon Child,” he whispered. “It’s glowing and glittering. And there—look!—a little flame is coming out of it. No, it’s not a grain of sand, it’s a seed. It’s a luminous seed and it’s starting to sprout!”

“Well done, my Bastian!” he heard her say. “You see how easy it is for you.”

Barely perceptible at first, the glow of the speck in Bastian’s palm grew quickly, making the two child faces, so very different from each other, gleam in the velvety darkness.

Slowly Bastian withdrew his hand, and the glittering speck hovered between them like a little star.

The seed sprouted so quickly that one could see it grow. It put forth leaves and a stem and buds that burst into many-colored, phosphorescent flowers. Little fruits formed, ripened, and exploded like miniature rockets, spraying new seeds all around them.