Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

Suddenly the stone gate was in ruins, but none of us saw or heard a thing. I even went over and examined the wreckage. And do you know what I found? The fragments are as old as the hills and overgrown with gray moss, as if they had been lying there for hundreds of years, as if the Great Riddle Gate had never existed.”

“It was there, though,” said Atreyu under his breath, “because I went through it. And then I went through the Magic Mirror Gate and the No-Key Gate.”

And then Atreyu reported everything that had happened to him. Now he remembered every last detail.

As Atreyu told them his story, Engywook, who at first had impatiently demanded further information, became more and more subdued. And when Atreyu repeated almost word for word what Uyulala had told him, the gnome said nothing at all. His shriveled little face had taken on a look of deepest gloom.

“Well,” said Atreyu in conclusion. “Now you know the secret. Uyulala is just a voice. She can only be heard. She is where she sings.”

For a time Engywook was silent. When he spoke, his voice was husky: “You mean she was .”

“Yes,” said Atreyu. “She herself said no one else would ever hear her speak. I was the last.”

Two little tears flowed down Engywook’s wrinkled cheeks.

“All for nothing!” he croaked. “My whole life work, all my research, my year-long observations. At last someone brings me the last stone for my scientific edifice, finally I’m in a position to complete my work, to write the last chapter—and it’s absolutely futile and superfluous. It’s no longer of the slightest interest to anyone, because the object under investigation has ceased to exist. There go my hopes. All shattered.”

He seemed to break into a fit of coughing, but actually he was shaken with sobs.

Moved to sympathy, Urgl stroked his bald little head and mumbled: “Poor old Engywook! Poor old Engywook! Don’t let it get you down. You’ll find something else to occupy you.”

“Woman!” Engywook fumed at her. “What you see before you is not a poor old Engywook, but a tragic figure.”

Once again he ran into the cave, and again a door was heard slamming within.

Urgl shook her head and sighed. “He means no harm,” she muttered. “He’s a good old sort. If only he weren’t plumb crazy!”

When they had. finished eating, Urgl stood up and said: “I’ve got to pack now. We can’t take much with us, but we will need a few things. I’d better hurry.”

“You’re going away?” Atreyu asked.

Urgl nodded. “We have no choice,” she said sadly. “Where the Nothing takes hold, nothing grows. And now, my poor old man has no reason to stay. We’ll just have to see how we make out. We’ll find a place somewhere. But what about you? What are your plans?”

“I have to do as Uyulala told me,” said Atreyu. “Try and find a human and take him to the Childlike Empress to give her a new name.”

“Where will you look for this human?” Urgl asked.

“I don’t know,” said Atreyu. “Somewhere beyond the borders of Fantastica.”

“We’ll get there!” came Falkor’s bell-like voice. I’ll carry you. You’ll see, we’ll be lucky.”

“In that case,” Urgl grunted, “you’d better get started.”

“Maybe we could give you a lift,” Atreyu suggested. “For part of the way.”

“That’s all I need,” said Urgl. “You won’t catch me gallivanting around in the air. A self-respecting gnome keeps his feet on the ground. Besides, you mustn’t let us delay you. You have more important things to do—for us all.”

“But I want to show my gratitude,” said Atreyu.

“The best way of doing that is to get started and stop frittering the time away with useless jibber-jabber.”

“She’s got something there,” said Falkor. “Let’s go, Atreyu.”

Atreyu swung himself up on the luckdragon’s back. One last time he turned back and shouted: “Goodbye!”

But Urgl was already inside the cave, packing.

When some hours later she and Engywook stepped out into the open, each was carrying an overloaded back-basket, and again they were busily quarreling. Off they waddled on their tiny, crooked legs, and never once looked back.

Later on, Engywook became very famous, in fact, he became the most famous gnome in the world, but not because of his scientific investigations. That, however, is another story and shall be told another time.

At the moment when the two gnomes were starting out, Atreyu was far away, whizzing through the skies of Fantastica on the back of Falkor, the white luckdragon.

Involuntarily Bastian looked up at the skylight, trying to imagine how it would be if Falkor came cutting through the darkening sky like a dancing white flame, if he and Atreyu were coming to get him.

“Oh my,” he sighed. “Wouldn’t that be something!”

He could help them, and they could help him. He would be saved and so would Fantastica.

igh in the air rode Atreyu, his red cloak flowing behind him. His blue-black hair fluttered in the wind. With steady, wavelike movements, Falkor, the white luckdragon, glided through the mists and tatters of clouds . . .

Up and down and up and down and up and down . . .

How long had they been flying? For days and nights and more days—Atreyu had lost track. The dragon had the gift of flying in his sleep. Farther and farther they flew.

Sometimes Atreyu dozed off, clinging fast to the dragon’s white mane. But it was only a light, restless sleep. And more and more his waking became a dream, all hazy and blurred.

Shadowy mountains passed below him, lands and seas, islands and rivers . . . Atreyu had lost interest in them, and gave up trying to hurry Falkor as he had done on first leaving the Southern Oracle. For then he had been impatient, thinking it a simple matter, for one with a dragon to ride, to reach the border of Fantastica and cross it to the Outer World.

He hadn’t known how very large Fantastica was.

Now he had to fight the leaden weariness that was trying to overpower him. His eyes, once as keen as a young eagle’s, had lost their distant vision. From time to time he would pull himself upright and try to look around, but then he would sink back and stare straight ahead at the dragon’s long, supple body with its pearly pink-and-white scales.

Falkor was tired too. His strength, which had seemed inexhaustible, was running out.

More than once in the course of their long flight they had seen below them spots which the Nothing had invaded and which gave them the feeling that they were going blind. Seen from that height, many of these spots seemed relatively small, but others were as big as whole countries. Fear gripped the luckdragon and his rider, and at first they changed direction to avoid looking at the horror. But, strange as it may seem, horror loses it’s power to frighten when repeated too often. And since the patches of Nothing became more and more frequent, the travelers were gradually getting used to them.

They had been flying in silence for quite some time when suddenly Falkor’s bronze-bell tone rang out: “Atreyu, my little master. Are you asleep?”

“No,” said Atreyu, though actually he had been caught up in a terrifying dream.

“What is it, Falkor?”

“I’ve been wondering if it wouldn’t be wiser to turn back.”

“Turn back? Where to?”

“To the Ivory Tower. To the Childlike Empress.”