The Neverending Story - The Neverending Story Part 2
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The Neverending Story Part 2

'You'd better take a look for yourself,' the tiny twittered. 'Come with me, my dear Vooshvazool. Come with me!'

The two of them started out.

The High Street, which wojund around the Ivory Tower in a narrowing spiral, was clogged with a dense crowd of the strangest creatures. Enormous beturbaned djinns, tiny kobolds, three-headed trolls, bearded dwarfs, glittering fairies, goat-legged fauns, nixies with wavy golden hair, sparkling snow sprites, and countless others were milling about, standing in groups, or sitting silently on the ground, discussing the situation or gazing glumly into the distance. Vooshvazool stopped still when he saw them. 'Hoo hoo,' he said. 'What's going on? What are they all doing here?'

'They're all messengers,' Gluckuk explained. 'Messengers from all over Fantastica. All with the same message as ours. I've spoken with several of them. The same menace seems to have broken out everywhere.'

The night-hob gave vent to a long wheezing sigh.

'Do they know,' he asked, 'what it is and where it comes from?'

'I'm afraid not. Nobody knows.'

'What about the Childlike Empress?'

'The Childlike Empress,' said the tiny in an undertone, 'is ill, very ill. Maybe that's the cause of this mysterious calamity that's threatening all Fantastica. But so far none of the many doctors who've been conferring in the Magnolia Pavilion has discovered the nature of her illness or found a cure for it.'

'That,' said the night-hob breathlessly, 'is - hoo hoo - terrible.'

'So it is,' said the tiny.

In view of the circumstances, Vooshvazool decided not to put in for an appointment.

Two days later Blubb, the will-o'-the-wisp, arrived. Of course, he had hopped in the wrong direction and made an enormous detour.

And finally - three days after that - Pyornkrachzark,- the rock chewer, appeared. He came plodding along on foot, for in a sudden frenzy of hunger he had eaten his stone bicycle.

During the long waiting period, the four so unalike messengers became good friends. From then on they stayed together.

But that's another story and shall be told another time.

II.

Atreyu's Mission

E CAUSE of their special importance, deliberations concerning the welfare of all Fantastica were held in the great throne room of the palace, which was situated only a few floors below the Magnolia Pavilion.

The large circular room was filled with muffled voices. The four hundred and ninety-nine best doctors in Fantastica had assembled there and were whispering or mumbling with one another in groups of varying sizes. Each one had examined the Childlike Empress -some more recently than others - and each had tried to help her with his skill. But none had succeeded, none knew the nature or cause of her illness, and none could think of a cure for it. Just then the five hundredth doctor, the most famous in all Fantastica, whose knowledge was said to embrace every existing medicinal herb, every magic philtre and secret of nature, was examining the patient. He had been with her for several hours, and all his assembled colleagues were eagerly awaiting the result of his examination.

Of course, this assembly was nothing like a human medical congress. To be sure, a good many of the inhabitants of Fantastica were more or less human in appearance, but at least as many resembled animals or were even farther from the human. The doctors inside the hall were just as varied as the crowd of messengers milling about outside. There were dwarf doctors with white beards and humps, there were fairy doctoresses in shimmering silvery-blue robes and with glittering stars in their hair, there were water sprites with big round bellies and webbed hands and feet (sitz baths had been installed for them) . There were white snakes, who had coiled up on the long table at the center of the room; there were witches, vampires, and ghosts, none of whom are generally reputed to be especially benevolent or conducive to good health.

If you are to understand why these last were present, there is one thing you have to know: The Childlike Empress - as her title indicates - was looked upon as the ruler over all the innumerable provinces of the Fantastican Empire, but in reality she was far more than a ruler; she was something entirely different.

She didn't rule, she had never used force or made use of her power. She never issued commands and she never judged anyone.

She never interfered with anyone and never had to defend herself against any assailant; for no one would have thought of rebelling against her or of harming her in any way. In her eyes all her subjects were equal.

She was simply there in a special way. She was the center of all life in Fantasdca.

And every creature, whether good or bad, beautiful or ugly, merry or solemn, foolish or wise - all owed their existence to her existence. Without her, nothing could have lived, any more than a human body can live if it has lost its heart.

All knew this to be so, though no one fully understood her secret. Thus she was respected by all the creatures of the Empire, and her health was of equal concern to them all. For her death would have meant the end of them all, the end of the boundless Fantastican realm.

Bastian's thoughts wandered.

Suddenly he remembered the long corridor in the hospital where his mother had been operated on. He and his father had sat waiting for hours outside the operating room. Doctors and nurses hurried this way and that. When his father asked about his wife, the answer was always evasive. No one really seemed to know how she was doing. Finally a bald-headed man in a white smock had come out to them. He looked tired and sad. Much as he regretted it, he said, his efforts had been in vain. He had pressed their hands and mumbled something about 'heartfelt sympathy.'

After that, everything had changed between Bastion and his father. Not outwardly. Bastion had everything he could have wished for. He had a three-speed bicycle, an electric train, plenty of vitamin pills, fifty-three books, a golden hamster, an aquarium with tropical fish in it, a small camera, six pocketknives, and so forth and so on. But none of all this really meant anything to him.

Bastian remembered that his father had often played with him in the past. He had even told him stories. No longer. He couldn't talk to his father anymore. There was an invisible wall around his father, and no one could get through to him. He never found fault and he never praised. Even when Bastian was put back in school, his father hadn't said anything. He had only looked at him in his sad, absent way, and Bastian felt that as far as his father was concerned he wasn't there at all. That was how his father usually made him feel. When they sat in front of the television screen in the evening, Bastian saw that his father wasn't even looking at it, that his thoughts were far away. Or when they both sat there with books, Bastian saw that his father wasn't reading at all. He'd been looking at the same page for hours and had forgotten to turn it.

Bastian knew his father was sad. He himself had cried for many nights-sometimes he had been so shaken by sobs that he had to vomit - but little by little it had passed. And after all he was still there. Why didn't his father ever speak to him, not about his mother, not about important things, but just for the feel of talking together?

'If only we knew,' said a tall, thin fire sprite, with a beard of red flames, 'if only we knew what her illness is. There's no fever, no swelling, no rash, no inflammation. She just seems to be fading away - no one knows why.'

As he spoke, little clouds of smoke came out of his mouth and formed figures. This time they were question marks.

A bedraggled old raven, who looked like a potato with feathers stuck onto it every which way, answered in a croaking voice (he was a head cold and sore throat specialist): 'She doesn't cough, she hasn't got a cold. Medically speaking, it's no disease at all.' He adjusted the big spectacles on his beak and a cast a challenging look around.

'One thing seems obvious,' buzzed a scarab (a beetle, sometimes known as a pill roller) : 'There is some mysterious connection between her illness and the terrible happenings these messengers from all Fantasdca have been reporting.'

'Oh yes!' scoffed an ink goblin. 'You see mysterious connections everywhere.'

'My dear colleague!' pleaded a hollow-cheeked ghost in a long white gown. 'Let's not get personal. Such remarks are quite irrelevant. And please - lower your voices.'

Conversations of this kind were going on in every part of the throne room. It may seem strange that creatures of so many different kinds were able to communicate with one another. But nearly all the inhabitants of Fantastica, even the animals, knew at least two languages: their own, which they spoke only with members of their own species and which no outsider understood, and the universal language known as High Fantastican. All Fantasticans used it, though some in a rather peculiar way.

Suddenly all fell silent, for the great double door had opened. In stepped Cairon, the far-famed master of the healer's art.

He was what in older times had been called a centaur. He had the body of a man from the waist up, and that of a horse from the waist down. And Cairon was furthermore a black centaur. He hailed from a remote region far to the south, and his human half was the color of ebony. Only his curly hair and beard were white, while the horselike half of him was striped like a zebra. He was wearing a strange hat plaited of reeds. A large golden amulet hung from a chain around his neck, and on this amulet one could make out two snakes, one light and one dark, which were biting each other's tail and so forming an oval.

Everyone in Fantastica knew what the medallion meant. It was the badge of one acting on orders from the Childlike Empress, acting in her name as though she herself were present.

It was said to give the bearer mysterious powers, though no one knew exactly what these powers were. Everyone knew its name: AURYN.

But many, who feared to pronounce the name, called it the 'Gem' or the 'Glory'.

In other words, the book bore the mark of the Childlike Empress!

A whispering passed through the throne room, and some of the doctors were heard to cry out. The Gem had not been entrusted to anyone for a long, long time.

Cairon stamped his hooves two or three times. When the disorder subsided, he said in a deep voice: 'Friends, don't be too upset. I shall only be wearing AURYN for a short time. I am merely a go-between. Soon I shall pass the Gem on to one worthier.'

A breathless silence filled the room.

'I won't try to misrepresent our defeat with high-sounding words.

The Childlike Empress's illness has baffled us all. The one thing we know is that the destruction of Fantastica began at the same time as this illness. We can't even be sure that medical science can save her. But it is possible - and I hope none of you will be offended at what I am going to say - it is possible that we, we who are gathered here, do not possess all knowledge, all wisdom. Indeed it is my last and only hope that somewhere in this unbounded realm there is a being wiser than we are, who can give us help and advice. Of course, this is no more than a possibility. But one thing is certain: The search for this savior calls for a pathfinder, someone who is capable of finding paths in the pathless wilderness and who will shrink from no danger or hardship. In other words: a hero. And the Childlike Empress has given me the name of this hero, to whom she entrusts her salvation and ours. His name is Atreyu, and he lives in the Grassy Ocean beyond the Silver Mountains. I shall transmit AURYN to him and send him on the Great Quest. Now you know all there is to know.'

With that, the old centaur thumped out of the room.

Those who remained behind exchanged looks of bewilderment.

'What was this hero's name?' one of them asked.

'Atreyu or something of the kind,' said another.

'Never heard of him,' said the third. And all four hundred and ninety-nine doctors shook their heads in dismay.

The clock in the belfry struck ten. Bastian was amazed at how quickly the time had passed. In class, every hour seemed to drag on for an eternity. Down below, they would be having history with Mr Drone, a gangling, ordinarily ill-tempered man, who delighted in holding Bastian up to ridicule because he couldn't remember the dates when certain battles had. been fought or when someone or other had reigned.

The Grassy Ocean behind the Silver Mountains was many days' journey from the Ivory Tower. It was actually a prairie, as long and wide and flat as an ocean. Its whole expanse was covered with tall, juicy grass, and when the wind blew, great waves passed over it with a sound like troubled water.

The people who lived there were known as 'Grass People' or 'Greenskins'. They had blue-black hair, which the men as well as the women wore long and often in pigtails, and their skin was olive green. They led a hard, frugal life, and their children, girls as well as boys, were brought up to be brave, proud, and generous. They learned to bear heat, cold, and great hardship and were tested for courage at an early age. This was necessary because the Greenskins were a nation of hunters. They obtained everything they needed either from the hard, fibrous prairie grass or from the purple buffaloes, great herds of which roamed the Grassy Ocean.

These purple buffaloes were about twice the size of common bulls or cows; they had long, purplish-red hair with a silky sheen and enormous horns with tips as hard and sharp as daggers. They were peaceful as a rule, but when they scented danger or thought they were being attacked, they could be as terrible as a natural cataclysm. Only a Greenskin would have dared to hunt these beasts, and moreover they used no other weapons than bows and arrows. The Greenskins were believers in chivalrous combat, and often it was not the hunted but the hunter who lost his life. The Greenskins loved and honored the purple buffaloes and held that only those willing to be killed by them had the right to kill them.

News of the Childlike Empress's illness and the danger threatening all Fantastica had not yet reached the Grassy Ocean. It was a long, long time since any traveler had visited the tent colonies of the Greenskins. The grass was juicier than ever, the days were bright, and the nights full of stars. All seemed to be well.

But one day a white-haired black centaur appeared. His hide was dripping with sweat, he seemed totally exhausted, and his bearded face was haggard. On his head he wore a strange hat plaited of reeds, and around his neck a chain with a large golden amulet hanging from it. It was Cairon.

He stood in the open space at the center of the successive rings of tents. It was there that the elders held their councils and that the people danced and sang old songs on feast days. He waited for the Greenskins to assemble, but it was only very old men and women and small children wide-eyed with curiosity who crowded around him. He stamped his hooves impatiently.

'Where are the hunters and huntresses?' he panted, removing his hat and wiping his forehead.

A white-haired woman with a baby in her arms replied: 'They are still hunting. They won't be back for three or four days.'

Is Atreyu with them?' the centaur asked.

'Yes, stranger, but how can it be that you know him?'

'I don't know him. Go and get him.'

'Stranger,' said an old man on crutches, 'he will come unwillingly, because this is his hunt. It starts at sunset. Do you know what that means?'

Cairon shook his mane and stamped his hooves.

'I don't know, and it doesn't matter. He has something more important to do now. You know this sign I am wearing. Go and get him.'

'We see the Gem,' said a little girl. 'And we know you have come from the Childlike Empress. But who are you?'

'My name is Cairon,' the centaur growled. 'Cairon the physician, if that means anything to you.'

A bent old woman pushed forward and cried out: 'Yes, it's true. I recognize him. I saw him once when I was young. He is the greatest and most famous doctor in all Fantastica.'

The centaur nodded. 'Thank you, my good woman,' he said. 'And now perhaps one of you will at last be kind enough to bring this Atreyu here. It's urgent. The life of the Childlike Empress is at stake.'

'I'll go,' cried a little girl of five or six.

She ran away and a few seconds later she could be seen between the tents galloping away on a saddleless horse.

'At last!' Cairon grumbled. Then he fell into a dead faint. When he revived, he didn't know where he was, for all was dark around him. It came to him only little by little that he was in a large tent, lying on a bed of soft furs. It seemed to be night, for through a cleft in the door curtain he saw flickering firelight.

'Holy horseshoes!' he muttered, and tried to sit up. 'How long have I been lying here?'

A head looked in through the door opening and pulled back again. Someone said: 'Yes, he seems to be awake.'

Then the curtain was drawn aside and a boy of about ten stepped in. His long trousers and shoes were of soft buffalo leather. His body was bare from the waist up, but a long purple-red cloak, evidently woven from buffalo hair, hung from his shoulders. His long blue-black hair was gathered together and held back by leather thongs. A few simple white designs were painted on the olive-green skin of his cheeks and forehead. His dark eyes flashed angrily at the intruder; otherwise his features betrayed no emotion of any kind. 'What do you want of me, stranger?' he asked. 'Why have you come to my tent? And why have you robbed me of my hunt? If I had killed the big buffalo today - and my arrow was already fitted to my bowstring - I'd have been a hunter tomorrow. Now I'll have to wait a whole year. Why?'

The old centaur stared at him in consternation. 'Am I to take it,' he asked, 'that you are Atreyu?' 'That's right, stranger.'

'Isn't there someone else of the same name? A grown man, an experienced hunter?'

'No. I and no one else am Atreyu.'

Sinking back on his bed of furs, old Cairon gasped: 'A child! A little boy! Really, the decisions of the Childlike Empress are hard to fathom.'

Atreyu waited in impassive silence.

'Forgive me, Atreyu,' said Cairon, controlling his agitation with the greatest difficulty. 'I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but the surprise has been just too great. Frankly, I'm horrified. I don't know what to think. I can't help wondering: Did the Childlike Empress really know what she was doing when she chose a youngster like you? It's sheer madness! And if she did it intentionally, then ... then ...'

With a violent shake of his head, he blurted out: 'No! No! If I had known whom she was sending me to, I'd have refused to entrust you with the mission. I'd have refused!' 'What mission?' Atreyu asked.

'It's monstrous!' cried Cairon indignantly. 'It's doubtful whether even the greatest, most experienced of heroes could carry out this mission ... and you! ... She's sending you into the unfathomable to look for the unknown ... No one can help you, no one can advise you, no one can foresee what will befall you. And yet you must decide at once, immediately, whether or not you accept the mission. There's not a moment to be lost. For ten days and nights I have galloped almost without rest to reach you. But now - I almost wish I hadn't got here. I'm very old, I'm at the end of my strength. Give me a drink of water, please.'

Atreyu brought a pitcher of fresh spring water. The centaur drank deeply, then he wiped his beard and said somewhat more calmly: 'Thank you. That was good. I feel better already. Listen to me, Atreyu. You don't have to accept this mission. The Childlike Empress leaves it entirely up to you. She never gives orders. I'll tell her how it is and she'll find someone else. She can't have known you were a little boy. She must have got you mixed up with someone else. That's the only possible explanation.'

'What is this mission?' Atreyu asked.

'To find a cure for the Childlike Empress,' the centaur answered, 'and save Fantastica.'

'Is she sick?' Atreyu asked in amazement.

Cairon told him how it was with the Childlike Empress and what the messengers had reported from all parts of Fantastica. Atreyu asked many questions and the centaur answered them to the best of his ability. They talked far into the night. And the more Atreyu learned of the menace facing Fantastica, the more his face, which at first had been so impassive, expressed unveiled horror.

'To think,' he murmured finally with pale lips, 'that I knew nothing about it!'

Cairon cast a grave, anxious look at the boy from under his bushy white eyebrows.

'Now you know the lie of the land,' he said. 'And now perhaps you understand why I was so upset when I first laid eyes on you. Still, it was you the Childlike Empress named. "Go and find Atreyu," she said to me. "I put all my trust in him," she said. "Ask him if he's willing to attempt the Great Quest for me and for Fantastica." I don't know why she chose you. Maybe only a little boy like you can do whatever has to be done. I don't know, and I can't advise you.'

Atreyu sat there with bowed head, and made no reply. He realized that this was a far greater task than his hunt. It was doubtful whether the greatest hunter and pathfinder could succeed; how then could he hope ... ?

'Well?' the centaur asked. 'Will you?' Atreyu raised his head and looked at him. 'I will,' he said firmly.