Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

Then Atreyu saw what they were staring at in fascinated horror. On the far side of the field lay the Nothing.

It was the selfsame Nothing that he had seen from the bark trolls’ treetop, or on the plain where the Magic Gates of the South Oracle had stood, or looking down from Falkor’s back—but until then he had always seen it from a distance. This time it was close by. It cut across the entire landscape and was coming slowly but irresistibly closer.

Atreyu saw that the spooks in the field ahead of him were twitching and quivering. Their limbs were convulsed and their mouths were wide open, as though they had wanted to scream or laugh, though not a sound came out of them. And then all at once—like leaves driven by a gust of wind—they rushed toward the Nothing. They leapt, they rolled, they flung themselves into it.

The last of the ghostly crowd had just vanished when Atreyu felt to his horror that his own body was beginning to take short, convulsive steps in the direction of the Nothing. He felt drawn to it by an unreasoning desire, and braced his will against it. He commanded himself to stand still. Slowly, very slowly, he managed to turn around and step by step, as though bucking a powerful current, to struggle forward. The force of attraction weakened and he ran, ran with all his might over the bumpy paving stones. He slipped, fell, picked himself up, and ran on. He had no time to wonder where this foggy road would lead him.

He followed the senseless twists and turns of the road until high pitch-black ramparts appeared in the fog ahead of him. Behind them several crooked towers jutted into the gray sky. The heavy wooden wings of the town gate were rotting away and hung loose on rusty hinges.

Atreyu went in.

It was growing colder and colder in the attic. Bastion’s teeth were chattering.

What if he should get sick—what would become of him then? He might come down with pneumonia, like Willy, a boy in his class. Then he would die all alone in this attic. There’d be no one to help him.

He’d have been very glad just then to have his father come and save him.

But go home? No, he couldn’t. He’d rather die.

He took the rest of the army blankets and wrapped them around him.

After a while he felt warmer.

n the endless sky, somewhere above the roaring waves, Falkor’s voice rang out like a great bronze bell:

“Atreyu! Where are you, Atreyu?” The Wind Giants had long finished their war game and had stormed apart. They would meet again in this or some other place, to continue their battle as they had done since time immemorial. They had already forgotten the white dragon and his little rider, for they remembered nothing and knew nothing except their own enormous power.

When Atreyu fell, Falkor tried to reach him and catch him. But a sudden whirlwind had driven the dragon upward and far away. When he returned, the Wind Giants were raging over another part of the sea. Falkor tried desperately to find the place where Atreyu had fallen, but even a white luckdragon can’t possibly find anything as tiny as a little boy in the seething foam of an angry ocean.

But Falkor wouldn’t give up. He flew high into the air to get a better view, then he skimmed the waves or flew in larger and larger circles, all the while calling Atreyu by name.

Being a luckdragon, he never doubted for a moment that everything would come out all right in the end. And his mighty voice resounded amid the roaring of the waves: “Atreyu! Atreyu, where are you?”

Atreyu wandered through the deathly stillness of a deserted city. The place seemed to be under a curse, a city of haunted castles and houses, inhabited only by ghosts. Like everything else in this country, the streets were crooked. Enormous spider webs were suspended over them, and a foul smell rose from the cellars and well shafts.

At first Atreyu darted from wall to wall for fear that someone would see him, but after a while he didn’t even bother to hide. The streets and squares were deserted, and nothing stirred in the houses. He went into some of them, but found only overturned furniture, tattered curtains, broken china and glassware—signs of devastation but no inhabitants. On one table there was still a half-eaten meal, dishes with black soup in them, and some sticky chunks of something that may have been bread. He ate some of both. The taste was disgusting, but he was very hungry. It struck him as almost fitting that he should end up in this town. Just the place, he thought, for someone who had given up hope.

Bastian was weak with hunger.

For some strange reason his thoughts turned to Anna’s apple strudel—the best apple strudel in the whole world.

Anna came three times a week. She would do a bit of typing for Bastian’s father and put the house in order. And usually she would cook or bake something. She was a strapping, bouncy woman with an unrestrained, cheery laugh. Bastian’s father was polite to her but seemed hardly aware of her presence. She was seldom able to bring a smile to his worried face. But when she was there, the place was a little more cheerful.

Though unmarried, Anna had a little daughter. Her name was Christa, she was three years younger than Bastian, and she had beautiful blond hair. At first Anna had brought Christa with her almost every time. Christa was very shy. Bastian spent hours telling her his stories, and she would sit there still as a mouse, watching him wide-eyed. She looked up to Bastian, and he was very fond of her.

But a year ago Anna had sent her daughter to a boarding school in the country. Since then she and Bastian had seldom seen each other.

Bastian had been rather cross with Anna. She had tried to explain why it was better for Christa, but he wasn’t convinced.

Even so, he could never resist her apple strudel.

He wondered in his distress how long a person could go without eating. Three days? Two? Maybe you’d get hallucinations after twenty-four hours. On his fingers Bastian counted the hours he had been there. At least ten. Maybe more. If only he had saved his sandwich, or at least his apple.

In the flickering candlelight the glass eyes of the fox, the owl, and the huge eagle looked almost alive. Their moving shadows loomed large on the attic wall.

Atreyu went out into the street again and wandered aimlessly about. He passed through neighborhoods where all the houses were small and so low that he could reach up to the eaves, and others lined with mansions many stories high, the fronts of which were adorned with statues. But all these statues were of skeletons or demons, which grimaced down at the forlorn wanderer.

Then suddenly he stopped stock-still.

From not far away he heard a raucous wailing that sounded so plaintive, so hopeless that it cut him to the heart. All the despair, all the desolation of the creatures of darkness was in that lament, which echoed back from the walls of distant buildings, until in the end it sounded like the howling of a scattered wolf pack.

Atreyu followed the sound, which gradually grew weaker and ended in a hoarse sob. He had to search for some time. He passed a gateway, entered a narrow, lightless court, passed through an arch, and finally came to a damp, grimy backyard. And there, chained, lay a gigantic, half-starved werewolf. Each rib stood out separately under its mangy fur, the vertebrae looked like the teeth of a saw, and its tongue dangled from its half-open mouth.

Slowly Atreyu approached him. When the werewolf noticed him, it raised its great head with a jerk. A greenish light flared up in its eyes.