Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

“Why can’t they?” he asked.

“They’d have to wish it. And they’ve stopped wishing. They used up their last wish for something else.”

“Their last wish?” said Bastian, going deathly pale. “Can’t a person go on wishing as long as he pleases?”

Argax giggled again. Then he tried to take off Bastian’s turban and pick lice out of his hair.

“Stop that!” Bastian cried. He tried to shake the little monkey off, but Argax held on tight and squealed with pleasure.

“No! No!” he chattered. “You can only wish as long as you remember your world. These people here used up all their memories. Without a past you can’t have a future. That’s why they don’t get older. Just look at them. Would you believe that some of them have been here a thousand years and more? But they stay just as they are. Nothing can change for them, because they themselves can’t change anymore.”

Bastian watched a man who had lathered a mirror and was starting to shave it. Once that might have struck him as funny; now it made him break out in gooseflesh.

He hurried on and soon realized that he was going deeper into the city. He wanted to turn back, but something drew him onward like a magnet. He began to run and tried to get rid of the bothersome gray monkey, but Argax clung fast and even spurred him on: “Faster! Faster!”

Bastian stopped running. He realized that he couldn’t escape. “You mean,” he asked, gasping for breath, “that all these people here were once Emperors of Fantastica, or wanted to be?”

“That’s it,” said Argax. “All the ones who can’t find their way back try sooner or later to become Emperor. They didn’t all make it, but they all tried. That’s why there are two kinds of fools here. Though the result, in a manner of speaking, is the same.”

“What two kinds? Tell me, Argax! I have to know!”

“Easy does it,” said the monkey, giggling as he tightened his grip on Bastian’s neck. “The one kind gradually used up their memories. And when they had lost the last one, AURYN couldn’t fulfill their wishes anymore. After that, they came here, in a manner of speaking, automatically. The others, the ones who crowned themselves emperor, lost all their memories at one stroke. So the same thing happened: AURYN couldn’t fulfill their wishes anymore, because they had none left. As you see, it comes to the same thing. Here they are, and they can’t get away.”

“Do you mean that they all had AURYN at one time?”

“Naturally!” said Argax. “But they forgot it long ago. And it wouldn’t help them anymore, the poor fools!”

“Was it . . .” Bastian hesitated. “Was it taken away from them?”

“No,” said Argax. “When someone crowns himself emperor, it simply vanishes. Obviously, because how, in a manner of speaking, can you use Moon Child’s power to take her power away from her?”

Bastian felt wretched. He would have liked to sit down somewhere, but the little gray monkey wouldn’t let him.

“No, no, our tour isn’t done yet. The best is yet to come! Keep moving!”

Bastian saw a boy with a heavy hammer trying to drive nails into a pair of socks. A fat man was trying to paste postage stamps on soap bubbles. They kept bursting, but he went on blowing new ones.

“Look!” Bastian heard the giggling voice of Argax and felt his head being twisted by the monkey’s little hands. “Look over there! It’s so amusing!”

Bastian saw a large group of people, men and women, young and old, all in the strangest clothes. They didn’t speak, each one was alone with himself. On the ground lay a large number of cubes, and there were letters on all six sides of the cubes. The people kept jumbling the cubes and then staring at them.

“What are they doing?” Bastian whispered. “What sort of game is that?”

“It’s called the jumble game,” answered Argax. He motioned to the players and cried out: “Good work, children! Keep at it! Don’t give up!”

Then, turning back to Bastian, he whispered in his ear: “They can’t talk anymore. They’ve lost the power of speech. So I thought up this game for them. As you see, it keeps them busy. It’s very simple. If you stop to think about it, you’ll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories. Now take a look. What do you see there?”

Bastian read:

H G I K L O P F M W E Y V X Q

Y X C V B N M A S D F G H J K L O A

Q W E R T Z U I O P U

A S D F G H J K L O A

M N B V C X Y L K J H G F D S A

U P O I U Z T R E W Q A S

Q S E R T Z U I O P U A S D A F

A S D F G H J K L O A Y X C

U P O I U Z T R E W Q

A O L K J H G F D S A M N B V

G K H D S R Z I P

Q E T U O U S F H K O

Y C B M W R Z I P

A R C G U N I K Y O

Q W E R T Z I O P L U A S D

M N B V C X Y A S D

L K J U O N G R E F G H I

“Yes, of course,” said Argax with a giggle, “it usually makes no more sense than that. But if you keep at it for a long time, words turn up now and then. Not very brilliant words, but still words. ‘Spinachcramp,’ for instance, or ‘sugarbrush,’ or ‘nosepolish.’ And if you play for a hundred years, or a thousand or a hundred thousand, the law of chances tells us that a poem will probably come out. And if you play it forever, every possible poem and every possible story will have to come out, in fact every story about a story, and even this story about the two of us chatting here. It’s only logical, don’t you think?”

“It’s horrible,” said Bastian.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Argax. “It depends on your point of view. It keeps these people, in a manner of speaking, busy. And anyway, what else can we do with them in Fantastica?”

For a long time Bastian watched the players in silence. Then he asked under his breath: “Argax, you know who I am, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Is there anyone in Fantastica who doesn’t?”

“Tell me one thing, Argax. If I had become emperor yesterday, would I already be here now?”

“Today or tomorrow,” said the monkey. “Or next week. One way or another, you’d have ended up here.”

“Then Atreyu saved me?”

“You’ve got me there,” the monkey admitted.

“But if he had succeeded in taking the Gem away from me, what would have happened then?”

The monkey giggled again.

“You’d have ended up here, in a manner of speaking, all the same.”

“Why?”

“Because you need AURYN to find the way back. But frankly, I don’t believe you’ll make it.”

The monkey clapped his little hands, lifted his mortarboard, and grinned.

“Tell me, Argax, what must I do?”

“Find a wish that will take you back to your world.”

After a long silence Bastian asked: “Argax, can you tell me how many wishes I have left?”

“Not very many. In my opinion three or four at the most. And that will hardly be enough. You’re beginning rather late, and the way back isn’t easy. You’ll have to cross the Sea of Mist. That alone will cost you a wish. What comes next I don’t know. No one in Fantastica knows what road you people must take to get back to your world. Maybe you’ll find Yor’s Minroud, that’s the last hope for people like you. But I’m afraid that for you it’s, in a manner of speaking, too far. Be that as it may, you will, just this once, find your way out of the City of the Old Emperors.”

“Thanks, Argax,” said Bastian.

The little gray monkey grinned.

“Goodbye, Bastian Balthazar Bux.”

With one leap Argax vanished into one of the crazy houses. He had taken Bastian’s turban with him.