Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

“Gladly,” said Bastian. “Anyone would be proud of such companions.”

The three knights wished to swear fealty by Bastian’s sword, but he held them back.

“Sikanda,” he explained, “is a magic sword. No one can touch it without mortal peril, unless he has eaten, drunk, and bathed in the fire of the Many-Colored Death.”

So they had to content themselves with a friendly handshake.

“What has become of Hero Hynreck?” Bastian asked.

“He’s a broken man,” said Hykrion.

“Because of his lady,” Hydorn added.

“Perhaps you can do something to help him,” said Hysbald.

All five of them went to the inn where they had stopped on their arrival in Amarganth and where Bastian had brought Yikka to the stable.

When they entered, one man was sitting there, bent over the table, his hands buried in his fair hair. The man was Hynreck.

Evidently he had had a change of armor in his luggage, for the outfit he was now wearing was rather simpler than the one that had been cut to pieces the day before.

In response to Bastian’s greeting, he merely stared. His eyes were rimmed with red.

When Bastian asked leave to sit down with him, he shrugged his shoulders, nodded, and sank back in his chair. Before him on the table was a sheet of paper, which looked as if it had been many times crumpled and smoothed out again.

“Can you forgive me?” said Bastian.

Hero Hynreck shook his head.

“It’s all over for me,” he said mournfully. “Here. Read it.”

He pushed the note across the table, and Bastian read it.

“I want only the best. You have failed me. Farewell.”

“From Princess Oglamar?” Bastian asked.

Hero Hynreck nodded.

“Immediately after our contest, she mounted her palfrey and rode off to the ferry. God knows where she is now. I’ll never see her again.”

“Can’t we overtake her?”

“What for?”

“Maybe she’ll change her mind.”

Hero Hynreck gave a bitter laugh.

“You don’t know Princess Oglamar,” he said. “I trained more than ten years to acquire my different skills. With iron discipline I avoided everything that could have impaired my physique. I fenced with the greatest fencing masters and wrestled with the greatest wrestlers, until I could beat them all. I can run faster than a horse, jump higher than a deer. I am best at everything—or rather, I was until yesterday. At the start she wouldn’t honor me with a glance, but little by little my accomplishments aroused her interest. I had every reason to hope—and now I see it was all in vain. How can I live without hope?”

“Maybe,” Bastian suggested, “you should forget Princess Oglamar. There must be others you could love just as much.”

“No,” said Hero Hynreck. “I love Princess Oglamar just because she won’t be satisfied with any but the greatest.”

“I see,” said Bastian. “That makes it difficult. What could you do? Maybe you could take up a different trade. How about singing? Or poetry?”

Hynreck seemed rather annoyed. “No,” he said flatly. “I’m a hero and that’s that. I can’t change my profession and I don’t want to. I am what I am.”

“I see,” said Bastian.

All were silent for a time. The three knights cast sympathetic glances at Hero Hynreck. They understood his plight. Finally Hysbald cleared his throat and turned to Bastian.

“Sir Bastian,” he said. “I think you could help him.”

Bastian looked at Atreyu, but Atreyu had put on his impenetrable face.

“A hero like Hynreck,” said Hydorn, “is really to be pitied in a world without monsters. See what I mean?”

No, Bastian didn’t see. Not yet at any rate.

“Monsters,” said Hykrion, winking at Bastian and stroking his huge moustache, “monsters are indispensable if a hero is to be a hero.”

At last Bastian understood.

“Listen to me, Hero Hynreck,” he said. “When I suggested giving your heart to another lady, I was only putting your love to the test. The truth is that Princess Oglamar needs your help right now, and that no one else can save her.”

Hero Hynreck pricked up his ears.

“Is that true, Sir Bastian?”

“It’s true, as you will soon see. Only a few minutes ago Princess Oglamar was seized and kidnapped.”

“By whom?”

“By one of the most terrible monsters that have ever existed in Fantastica. The dragon Smerg. She was riding across a clearing in the woods when the monster saw her from the air, swooped down, lifted her off her palfrey’s back, and carried her away.”

Hynreck jumped up. His eyes flashed, his cheeks were aglow. He clapped his hands for joy. But then the light went out of his eyes and he sat down.

“That’s not possible,” he said. “There are no more dragons anywhere.”

“You forget, Hero Hynreck, that I come from far away. From much farther than you have ever been.”

“That’s true,” said Atreyu, joining in for the first time.

“And this monster really carried her away?” Hero Hynreck cried. Then he pressed both hands to his heart and sighed: “Oh, my adored Oglamar! How you must be suffering! But never fear, your knight is coming, he is on his way. Tell me, what must I do? Where must I go?”

“Far, far from here,” Bastian began, “there’s a country called Morgul, or the Land of the Cold Fire, because flames there are colder than ice. How you are to reach that country, I can’t tell you, you must find out for yourself. In the center of Morgul there is a petrified forest called Wodgabay. And in the center of that petrified forest stands the leaden castle of Ragar. It is surrounded by three moats. The first is full of arsenic, the second of steaming nitric acid, and the third is swarming with scorpions as big as your feet. There are no bridges across them, for the lord of the leaden castle is Smerg, the winged monster. His wings are made of slimy skin and their spread is a hundred feet. When he isn’t flying, he stands on his hind legs like a gigantic kangaroo. He has the body of a mangy rat and the tail of a scorpion, with a sting at the end of it. The merest touch of that sting is fatal. He has the hind legs of a giant grasshopper. His forelegs, however, which look small and shriveled, resemble the hands of a small child. But don’t let them fool you, there’s a deadly power in those hands. He can pull in his long neck as a snail does its feelers. There are three heads on it. One is large and looks like the head of a crocodile. From its mouth he can spit icy fire. But where a crocodile has its eyes, it has two protuberances. These are extra heads. One resembles the head of an old man. With it he can see and hear. But he talks with the second head, which has the wrinkled face of an old woman.”

While listening to this description, Hero Hynreck went pale.

“What was this monster’s name?” he asked.

“Smerg,” Bastian repeated. “He has been wreaking his mischief for a thousand years. Because that’s how old he is. It’s always a beautiful maiden that he kidnaps, and she has to keep house for him until the end of her days. When she dies, he kidnaps another.”

“Why haven’t I ever heard of this dragon?”

“Smerg flies incredibly far and fast. Up to now he has always chosen other parts of Fantastica for his raids. Besides, they only happen once in every fifty years or so.”

“Hasn’t any of these maidens ever been rescued?”

“No, that would take a very special sort of hero.”

These words brought the color back to Hero Hynreck’s cheeks. And remembering what he had learned about dragons, he asked: “Has this Smerg a vulnerable spot?”

“Oh,” said Bastian, “I almost forgot. In the bottommost cellar of Ragar Castle there’s a lead ax. It’s the only weapon Smerg can be killed with, so naturally he guards it well. You have to cut off the two smaller heads with it.”