The Neverending Story (19 page)

“How can that be?”

Gmork was enjoying Atreyu’s consternation. This little talk was cheering him up.

After a while, he went on:

“You ask me what you will be there. But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story. Do you think you’re real? Well yes, here in your world you are. But when you’ve been through the Nothing, you won’t be real anymore. You’ll be unrecognizable. And you will be in another world. In that world, you Fantasticans won’t be anything like yourselves.

You will bring delusion and madness into the human world. Tell me, sonny, what do you suppose will become of all the Spook City folk who have jumped into the Nothing?”

“I don’t know,” Atreyu stammered.

“They will become delusions in the minds of human beings, fears where there is nothing to fear, desires for vain, hurtful things, despairing thoughts where there is no reason to despair.”

“All of us?” asked Atreyu in horror.

“No,” said Gmork, “there are many kinds of delusion. According to what you are here, ugly or beautiful, stupid or clever, you will become ugly or beautiful, stupid or clever lies.”

“What about me?” Atreyu asked. “What will I be?”

Gmork grinned.

“I won’t tell you that. You’ll see. Or rather, you won’t see, because you won’t be yourself anymore.”

Atreyu stared at the werewolf with wide-open eyes.

Gmork went on:

“That’s why humans hate Fantastica and everything that comes from here. They want to destroy it. And they don’t realize that by trying to destroy it they multiply the lies that keep flooding the human world. For these lies are nothing other than creatures of Fantastica who have ceased to be themselves and survive only as living corpses, poisoning the souls of men with their fetid smell. But humans don’t know it. Isn’t that a good joke?”

“And there’s no one left in the human world,” Atreyu asked in a whisper, “who doesn’t hate and fear us?”

“I know of none,” said Gmork. “And it’s not surprising, because you yourselves, once you’re there, can’t help working to make humans believe that Fantastica doesn’t exist.”

“Doesn’t exist?” the bewildered Atreyu repeated.

“That’s right, sonny,” said Gmork. “In fact, that’s the heart of the matter. Don’t you see? If humans believe Fantastica doesn’t exist, they won’t get the idea of visiting your country. And as long as they don’t know you creatures of Fantastica as you really are, the Manipulators do what they like with them.”

“What can they do?”

“Whatever they please. When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts. That’s why I sided with the powerful and served them—because I wanted to share their power.”

“I want no part in it!” Atreyu cried out.

“Take it easy, you little fool,” the werewolf growled. “When your turn comes to jump into the Nothing, you too will be a nameless servant of power, with no will of your own. Who knows what use they will make of you? Maybe you’ll help them persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them. Yes, you little Fantastican, big things will be done in the human world with your help, wars started, empires founded . . .”

For a time Gmork peered at the boy out of half-closed eyes. Then he added: “The human world is full of weak-minded people, who think they’re as clever as can be and are convinced that it’s terribly important to persuade even the children that Fantastica doesn’t exist. Maybe they will be able to make good use of you.”

Atreyu stood there with bowed head.

Now he knew why humans had stopped coming to Fantastica and why none would come to give the Childlike Empress new names. The more of Fantastica that was destroyed, the more lies flooded the human world, and the more unlikely it became that a child of man should come to Fantastica. It was a vicious circle from which there was no escape. Now Atreyu knew it.

And so did someone else: Bastian Balthazar Bux.

He now realized that not only was Fantastica sick, but the human world as well. The two were connected. He had always felt this, though he could not have explained why it was so. He had never been willing to believe that life had to be as gray and dull as people claimed. He heard them saying: “Life is like that,” but he couldn’t agree. He never stopped believing in mysteries and miracles.

And now he knew that someone would have to go to Fantastica to make both worlds well again.

If no human knew the way, it was precisely because of the lies and delusions that came into the world because Fantastica was being destroyed. It was these lies and delusions that made people blind.

With horror and shame Bastian thought of his own lies. He didn’t count the stories he made up. That was something entirely different. But now and then he had told deliberate lies—sometimes out of fear, sometimes as a way of getting something he wanted, sometimes just to puff himself up. What inhabitants of Fantastica might he have maimed and destroyed with his lies?

One thing was plain: He too had contributed to the sad state of Fantastica. And he was determined to do something to make it well again. He owed it to Atreyu, who was prepared to make any sacrifice to bring Bastian to Fantastica. He had to find the way.

The clock in the belfry struck eight.

The werewolf had been watching Atreyu closely.

“Now you know how you can get to the human world,” he said. “Do you still want to go, sonny?”

Atreyu shook his head.

“I don’t want to turn into a lie,” he said.

“You’ll do that whether you like it or not,” said Gmork almost cheerfully.

“But what about you? Why are you here?”

“I had a mission,” Gmork said reluctantly.

“You too?”

Atreyu looked at the werewolf with interest, almost with sympathy.

“Were you successful?”

“No. If I had been, I wouldn’t be lying here chained. Everything went pretty well until I came to this city. The Dark Princess, who ruled here, received me with every honor. She invited me to her palace, fed me royally, and did everything to make me think she was on my side. And naturally the inhabitants of this Land of Ghosts rather appealed to me, they made me feel at home, so to speak. The Dark Princess was very beautiful in her way—to my taste at least. She stroked me and ran her fingers through my coat. No one had ever caressed me like that. In short, I lost my head and let my tongue get out of hand. She pretended to admire me; I lapped it up, and in the end I told her about my mission. She must have cast a spell on me, because I am ordinarily a light sleeper. When I woke up, I had this chain on me. And the Dark Princess was standing there. ‘Gmork,’ she said. ‘You forgot that I too am one of the creatures of Fantastica. And that to fight against Fantastica is to fight against me. That makes you my enemy, and I’ve outsmarted you. This chain can never be undone by anyone but me. But I am going into the Nothing with all my menservants and maidservants, and I shall never come back.’ Then she turned on her heel and left me. But all the spooks didn’t follow her example. It was only when the Nothing came closer that more and more of them were unable to resist its attraction.

If I’m not mistaken, the last of them have just gone. Yes, sonny, I fell into a trap, I listened too long to that woman. But you have fallen into the same trap, you’ve listened too long to me. For in these moments the Nothing has closed around the city like a ring.

You’re caught and there’s no escape.”

“Then we’ll die together,” said Atreyu.

“So we will,” said Gmork, “but in very different ways, you little fool. For I shall die before the Nothing gets here, but you will be swallowed up by it. There’s a big difference. Because I die first, my story is at an end. But yours will go on forever, in the form of a lie.”

“Why are you so wicked?” Atreyu asked.

“Because you creatures had a world,” Gmork replied darkly, “and I didn’t.”

“What was your mission?”

Up until then Gmork had been sitting up. Now he slumped to the ground. He was plainly at the end of his strength, and he spoke in raucous gasps.

“Those whom I serve decided that Fantastica must be destroyed. But then they saw that their plan was endangered. They had learned that the Childlike Empress had sent out a messenger, a great hero—and it looked as if he might succeed in bringing a human to Fantastica. They wanted to have him killed before it was too late. That was why they sent me, because I had been in Fantastica and knew my way around. I picked up his trail right away, I tracked him day and night—gradually coming closer—through the Land of the Sassafranians—the jungle temple of Muwamath—Howling Forest—the Swamps of Sadness—the Dead Mountains—but then in the Deep Chasm by Ygramul’s net, I lost the track, he seemed to have dissolved into thin air. I went on searching, he had to be somewhere. But I never found his trail again, and this is where I ended up. I’ve failed. But so has he, for Fantastica is going under! I forgot to tell you, his name was Atreyu.”

Gmork raised his head. The boy had taken a step back.

“I am Atreyu,” he said.

A tremor ran through the werewolf’s shrunken body. It came again and again and grew stronger and stronger. Then from his throat came a panting cough. It grew louder and more rasping; it swelled to a roar that echoed back from the city’s walls. The werewolf was laughing.

It was the most horrible sound Atreyu had ever heard. Never again was he to hear anything like it.

And then suddenly it stopped.

Gmork was dead.

For a long time Atreyu stood motionless. At length he approached the dead werewolf—he himself didn’t know why—bent over the head and touched the shaggy black fur. And in that moment, quicker than thought, Gmork’s teeth snapped on Atreyu’s leg. Even in death, the evil in him had lost none of its power.

Desperately Atreyu tried to break open the jaws. In vain. The gigantic teeth, as though held in place by steel clamps, dug into his flesh. Atreyu sank to the grimy pavement beside the werewolf’s corpse.

And step by step, soundless and irresistible, the Nothing advanced from all sides, through the high black wall surrounding the city.

  ust as Atreyu passed through the somber gateway of Spook City and started on the exploration that was to end so dismally in a squalid backyard, Falkor, the luckdragon, was making an astonishing discovery.

While searching tirelessly for his little friend and master, he had flown high into the clouds. On every side lay the sea, which was gradually growing calmer after the great storm that had churned it from top to bottom. Suddenly, far in the distance, Falkor caught sight of something that puzzled and intrigued him. It was as though a beam of golden light were going on and off, on and off, at regular intervals. And that beam of light seemed to point directly at him, Falkor.

He flew toward it as fast as he could, and when he was directly over it he saw that the light signal came from deep down in the water, perhaps from the bottom of the sea.

Luckdragons, as we know, are creatures of air and fire. Not only is the liquid element alien to them; it is also their enemy. Water can extinguish them like a flame, or it can asphyxiate them, for they never stop breathing in air through their thousands of pearly scales. They feed on air and heat and require no other nourishment, but without air and heat they can only live a short time.