Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

nitting his brow, powerless to utter a single word, Atreyu stood gazing at the Childlike Empress. He had no idea how to begin or what to do. He had often tried to imagine this moment, he had prepared words and phrases, but they had all gone out of his head.

At length she smiled at him. Her voice when she spoke was as soft as the voice of a bird singing in its sleep.

“You have returned from the Great Quest, Atreyu.”

Atreyu hung his head.

“Yes,” he managed to say.

After a short silence she went on: “Your lovely cloak has turned gray. Your hair is gray and your skin is like stone. But all that will be as it was, or better. You’ll see.”

Atreyu felt as if a band had tightened around his throat. All he could do was nod his head. Then he heard the sweet soft voice saying: “You have carried out your mission . . .”

Were these words meant as a question? Atreyu didn’t know. He didn’t dare look up to read the answer in her face. Slowly he reached for the golden amulet and removed the chain from his neck. Without raising his eyes, he held it out to the Childlike Empress. He tried to kneel as messengers did in the stories and songs he had heard at home, but his wounded leg refused to do his bidding. He fell at the Childlike Empress’s feet, and there he lay with his face to the floor.

She bent forward, picked up AURYN, and let the chain glide through her fingers.

“You have done well,” she said, “and I am pleased with you.”

“No!” cried Atreyu almost savagely. “It was all in vain. There’s no hope.”

A long silence followed. Atreyu buried his face in the crook of his elbow, and his whole body trembled. How would she react? With a cry of despair, a moan, words of bitter reproach or even anger? Atreyu couldn’t have said what he expected. Certainly not what he heard. Laughter. A soft, contented laugh. Atreyu’s thoughts were in a whirl, for a moment he thought she had gone mad. But that was not the laughter of madness. Then he heard her say: “But you’ve brought him with you.”

Atreyu looked up.

“Who?”

“Our savior.”

He looked into her eyes and found only serenity. She smiled again.

“Golden-eyed Commander of Wishes,” he stammered, now for the first time using the official words of address that Falkor had recommended. “I . . . no, really . . . I don’t understand.”

“I can see that by the look on your face,” she said. “But whether you understand or not, you’ve done it. And that’s what counts, isn’t it?”

Atreyu said nothing. He couldn’t even think of a question to ask. He stood there openmouthed, staring at the Childlike Empress. “I saw him,” she went on, “and he saw me.”

“When?” Atreyu asked.

“Just as you came in. You brought him with you.”

Involuntarily Atreyu looked around.

“Then where is he? I don’t see anyone but you and me.”

“Oh, the world is full of things you don’t see. You can believe me. He isn’t in our world yet. But our worlds have come close enough together for us to see each other. For a twinkling the thin wall between us became transparent. He will be with us soon and then he will call me by the new name that he alone can give me. Then I shall be well, and so will Fantastica.”

As the Childlike Empress was speaking, Atreyu raised himself with difficulty. He looked up to her as she lay on her bed of cushions. His voice was husky when he asked: “Then you’ve known my message all along? What Morla the Aged One told me in the Swamps of Sadness, what the mysterious voice of Uyulala in the Southern Oracle revealed to me—you knew it all?”

“Yes,” she said. “I knew it before I sent you on the Great Quest.”

Atreyu gulped.

“Why,” he finally managed to ask, “why did you send me then? What did you expect me to do?”

“Exactly what you did,” she replied.

“What I did . . .” Atreyu repeated slowly. His forehead clouded over. “In that case,” he said angrily, “it was all unnecessary. There was no need of sending me on the Great Quest. I’ve heard that your decisions are often mysterious. That may be. But after all I’ve been through I hate to think that you were just having a joke at my expense.”

The Childlike Empress’s eyes grew grave.

“I was not having a joke at your expense, Atreyu,” she said. “I am well aware of what I owe you. All your sufferings were necessary. I sent you on the Great Quest—not for the sake of the message you would bring me, but because that was the only way of calling our savior. He took part in everything you did, and he has come all that long way with you. You heard his cry of fear when you were talking with Ygramul beside the Deep Chasm, and you saw him when you stood facing the Magic Mirror Gate. You entered into his image and took it with you, and he followed you, because he saw himself through your eyes. And now, too, he can hear every word we are saying. He knows we are talking about him, he knows we have set our hope in him and are expecting him. Perhaps he even understands that all the hardship you, Atreyu, took upon yourself was for his sake and that all Fantastica is calling him.”

Little by little the darkness cleared from Atreyu’s face.

After a while he asked: “How can you know all that? The cry by the Deep Chasm and the image in the magic mirror? Did you arrange it all in advance?”

The Childlike Empress picked up AURYN, and said, while putting the chain around her neck: “Didn’t you wear the Gem the whole time? Didn’t you know that through it I was always with you?”

“Not always,” said Atreyu. “I lost it.”

“Yes. Then you were really alone. Tell me what happened to you then.”

Atreyu told her the story.

“Now I know why you turned gray,” said the Childlike Empress. “You were too close to the Nothing.”

“Gmork, the werewolf, told me,” said Atreyu, “that when a Fantastican is swallowed up by the Nothing, he becomes a lie. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is true,” said the Childlike Empress, and her golden eyes darkened. “All lies were once creatures of Fantastica. They are made of the same stuff—but they have lost their true nature and become unrecognizable. But, as you might expect from a half-and-half creature like Gmork, he told you only half the truth. There are two ways of crossing the dividing line between Fantastica and the human world, a right one and a wrong one. When Fantasticans are cruelly dragged across it, that’s the wrong way. When humans, children of man, come to our world of their own free will, that’s the right way. Every human who has been here has learned something that could be learned only here, and returned to his own world a changed person. Because he had seen you creatures in your true form, he was able to see his own world and his fellow humans with new eyes. Where he had seen only dull, everyday reality, he now discovered wonders and mysteries. That is why humans were glad to come to Fantastica. And the more these visits enriched our world, the fewer lies there were in theirs, the better it became. Just as our two worlds can injure each other, they can also make each other whole again.”

For a time both were silent. Then she went on: “Humans are our hope. One of them must come and give me a new name. And he will come.”

Atreyu made no answer.

“Do you understand now, Atreyu,” she asked, “why I had to ask so much of you? Only a long story full of adventures, marvels, and dangers could bring our savior to me. And that was your story.” Atreyu sat deep in thought. At length he nodded. “Yes, Golden-eyed Commander of Wishes, now I understand. I thank you for choosing me. Forgive my anger.”