The Neverending Story (42 page)

Then he remembered what Falkor and Atreyu had told him: that no one could meet the Childlike Empress more than once.

The thought made him so unhappy that he suddenly longed for Atreyu and Falkor. He needed someone to talk to, to confide in.

Then he had an idea: If he put on the belt Ghemmal and made himself invisible, he could enjoy their comforting presence without mentioning the humiliation he felt.

He opened the ornate casket, took out the belt, and put it on. Then, after waiting until he had got used to the unpleasant sensation of not seeing himself, he went out and wandered about the tent city in search of Atreyu and Falkor. Wherever he went he heard excited whispers, figures darted from tent to tent, here and there several creatures were huddled together, talking and gesticulating. By then the other messengers had returned, and the news that Moon Child was not in the Ivory Tower had spread like wildfire.

Atreyu and Falkor were under a flowering rosemary tree at the very edge of the camp. Atreyu was sitting with his arms folded, looking fixedly in the direction of the Ivory Tower. The luckdragon lay beside him with his great head on the ground.

“That was my last hope,” said Atreyu. “I thought she might make an exception for him and let him return the amulet. Now all is lost.”

“She must know what she’s doing,” said Falkor. At that moment Bastian located them and sat down invisibly nearby.

“Is it certain?” Atreyu murmured. “He mustn’t be allowed to keep AURYN!”

“What will you do?” Falkor asked. “He won’t give it up of his own free will.”

“Then I’ll have to take it from him,” said Atreyu.

At those words Bastian felt the ground sinking from under him.

“That won’t be easy,” he heard Falkor saying. “But if you do take it, I trust that he won’t be able to get it back.”

“That’s not so sure,” said Atreyu. “He’ll still have his great strength and his magic sword.”

“But the Gem would protect you,” said Falkor. “Even against him.”

“No,” said Atreyu. “I don’t think so. Not against him.”

“And to think,” said Falkor with a grim laugh, “that he himself offered it to you on your first night in Amarganth.”

Atreyu nodded. “I didn’t realize then what would happen.”

“How are you going to take it from him?” Falkor asked.

“I’ll have to steal it,” said Atreyu.

Falkor’s head shot up. With glowing ruby-red eyes he stared at Atreyu, who hung his head and repeated in an undertone: “I’ll have to. There’s no other way.”

After a long silence Falkor asked: “When?”

“It will have to be tonight. Tomorrow may be too late.”

Bastian had heard enough. Slowly he crept away. His only feeling was one of cold emptiness. Everything was indifferent to him now, just as Xayide had said.

He went back to his tent and took off the belt Ghemmal. Then he bade Ilwan bring him the three knights, Hysbald, Hykrion, and Hydorn. As he paced the ground waiting, it came to him that Xayide had foreseen it all. He hadn’t wanted to believe her, but now he was obliged to. Xayide, he now realized, was sincerely devoted to him. She was his only true friend. But there was still room for doubt. Perhaps Atreyu wouldn’t actually carry out his plan. Maybe he had already repented. In that case Bastian wouldn’t ever mention it—though friendship now meant nothing to him. That was over and done with.

When the three knights appeared, he told them he had reason to believe that a thief would come to his tent that night. When they agreed to keep watch and lay hands on the thief whoever he might be, he went to Xayide’s coral litter. She lay sound asleep, attended by her five giants in their black armor, who stood motionless on guard. In the darkness they looked like five boulders.

“I wish you to obey me,” Bastian said softly.

Instantly, all five turned their black iron faces toward him.

“Command us, master of our mistress,” said one in a metallic voice.

“Do you think you can handle Falkor the luckdragon?” Bastian asked.

“That depends on the will that guides us,” said the metallic voice.

“It is my will,” said Bastian.

“Then there is no one we cannot handle,” was the answer.

“Good. Then go close to where he is.” He pointed. “That way. As soon as Atreyu leaves him, take him prisoner. But keep him there. I’ll have you called when I want you.”

“Master of our mistress,” the metallic voice replied, “it shall be done.”

The five black giants marched off in step. Xayide smiled in her sleep.

Bastian went back to his tent. But once in sight of it, he hesitated. If Atreyu should really attempt to steal the Gem, he didn’t want to be there when they seized him.

He sat down under a tree nearby and waited, wrapped in his silver mantle. Slowly the time passed, the sky paled in the east, it would soon be morning. Bastian was beginning to hope that Atreyu had abandoned his project when suddenly he heard a tumult in his tent. And a moment later Hykrion led Atreyu out with his arms chained behind his back. The two other knights followed. Bastian dragged himself to his feet and stood leaning against the tree.

“So he’s actually done it,” he muttered to himself.

Then he went to his tent. He couldn’t bear to look at Atreyu, and Atreyu too kept his eyes to the ground.

“Ilwan,” said Bastian to the blue djinn. “Wake the whole camp! I want everyone here. And tell the black giants to bring Falkor.”

The djinn hurried off with the rasping cry of an eagle. Wherever he went, the denizens of the tents large and small began to stir.

“He didn’t defend himself at all,” said Hykrion, with a movement of his head toward Atreyu, who was standing there motionless with eyes downcast. Bastian turned away and sat down on a stone.

By the time the five armored giants appeared with Falkor, a large crowd had gathered. At the approach of the stamping metallic steps, the crowd opened up a passage. Falkor was not chained, and the armed guards were not holding him, but merely marching to the left and right of him with drawn swords.

“He offered no resistance, master of our mistress,” said one of the metallic voices.

Falkor lay down on the ground at Atreyu’s feet and closed his eyes.

A long silence followed. Creatures poured in from the camp and craned their necks to see what was going on. Only Xayide was absent. Little by little the whispering died down. All eyes shuttled back and forth between Bastian and Atreyu, who stood motionless, looking like stone statues in the gray morning light.

At length Bastian spoke.

“Atreyu,” he said. “You tried to steal Moon Child’s amulet and take it for yourself. And you, Falkor, were an accomplice to his plan. Not only have you both been untrue to our old friendship, you have also been guilty of disobedience to Moon Child, who gave me the Gem. Do you confess your wrong?”

Atreyu cast a long glance at Bastian; then he nodded.

Bastian’s voice failed him. It was some time before he could go on.

“I have not forgotten, Atreyu, that it was you who brought me to Moon Child. I have not forgotten Falkor’s singing in Amarganth. So I will spare your lives, the lives of a thief and of a thief’s accomplice. Do what you will. Just so you go away, the farther the better, and never let me lay eyes on you again. I banish you forever. I have never known you.”

He bade Hykrion remove Atreyu’s chains. Then he turned away.

Atreyu stood motionless for a long while. Then he cast another glance at Bastian. It looked as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind. He bent down to Falkor and whispered something in his ear. The luckdragon opened his eyes and sat up. Atreyu jumped on his back and Falkor rose into the air. He flew straight into the brightening morning sky, and though his movements were heavy and sluggish, he soon vanished in the distance.

Bastian went to his tent and threw himself down on his bed.

“At last you have achieved true greatness,” said a soft voice. “Now you’ve stopped caring for anything; now nothing can move you.”

Bastian sat up. It was Xayide. She was squatting in the darkest corner of the tent.

“You?” said Bastian. “How did you get in?”

Xayide smiled.

“O my lord and master, no guards can shut me out. Only your command can do that. Do you wish to send me away?”

Bastian lay back and closed his eyes. After a while he muttered: “It’s all the same to me. Go or stay!”

For a long while she watched him from under her half-lowered lids. Then she asked: “What are you thinking about, my lord and master?”

Bastian turned away and did not reply.

It was plain to Xayide that this was no time to leave him to himself. In such a mood he was capable of slipping away from her. She must comfort him and cheer him up—in her own way. For she was determined to hold him to the course she had planned for him—and for herself. And she knew that in the present juncture no magical belts or tricks would suffice. It would take stronger medicine, the strongest medicine available to her, namely, Bastian’s secret wishes. She sat down beside him and whispered in his ear: “When, O lord and master, will you go to the Ivory Tower?”

“I don’t know,” said Bastian. “What can I do there if Moon Child is gone?”

“You could go and wait for her.”

Bastian turned to face Xayide.

“Do you think she’ll be back?”

He had to repeat his question more insistently before Xayide replied: “No, I don’t believe so. I believe she has had to leave Fantastica forever, and that you, my lord and master, are her successor.”

Slowly Bastian sat up and looked into Xayide’s red-and-green eyes. It was some time before he grasped the full meaning of her words.

“I!?” he gasped. And his cheeks broke out in red spots.

“Do you find the idea so frightening?” Xayide whispered. “She gave you the emblem of her power. Now she has left you her empire. Now, my lord and master, you will be the Childlike Emperor. It is only your right. You not only saved Fantastica by your coming, you also created it! All of us—I too!—are your creatures. Why should you, the Great Knower, fear to take the power that is rightfully yours?”

Bastian’s eyes glowed with a cold fever. And then Xayide spoke to him of a new Fantastica, a world molded in every detail to Bastian’s taste, where he could create and destroy just as he pleased, where every creature, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, wise or foolish, would be the product of his will alone, and he would reign supreme and inscrutable, playing an everlasting game with the destinies of his subjects.

“Then alone,” she concluded, “will you be truly free, free from all obstacles, free to do as you please. Weren’t you trying to find out what you really and truly want? Well, now you know.”

That same morning they broke camp, and led by Bastian and Xayide in the coral litter, the great procession set out for the Ivory Tower. A well-nigh endless column moved along the twining paths of the Labyrinth. In the late afternoon, when the head of the column reached the Ivory Tower, the last stragglers had barely entered the great flowering maze.

Bastian could not have wished for a more festive reception. On every roof and battlement stood elves with gleaming trumpets, blaring away at the top of their lungs. The jugglers juggled, the astrologers proclaimed Bastian’s greatness and good fortune, the bakers baked cakes as big as mountains, the ministers and councilors escorted the coral litter through the teeming crowd on the High Street, which wound in an ever-narrowing spiral up the conical tower to the great gate leading into the palace. Followed by Xayide and the dignitaries, Bastian climbed the snow-white steps of the broad stairway, traversed halls and corridors, passed through a second gate, through a garden full of ivory animals, trees, and flowers, mounted higher and higher, crossed a bridge, and passed through the last gate. He was heading for the Magnolia Pavilion at the very top of the tower. But the blossom was closed and the last stretch of the way was so steep and smooth that no one could climb it.

Bastian remembered that the wounded Atreyu had not been able to climb that slope, not by his own strength at least, because no one who has ever reached the Magnolia Pavilion can say how he got there. For this victory must come as a gift.

But Bastian was not Atreyu. If anyone was now entitled to bestow the gift of this victory, it was he. And he had no intention of letting anything stop him.

“Bring workmen,” he commanded. “I want them to cut steps in this smooth surface. I wish to make my residence up there.”

“Sire,” one of the oldest councilors ventured to object, “that is where our Golden-eyed Commander of Wishes lives when she is here.”

“Do as you’re told!” Bastian roared at him.

The dignitaries turned pale and shrank back from him. But they obeyed. Workmen arrived with mallets and chisels. But try as they might, they couldn’t so much as chip the smooth surface of the dome. The chisels leapt from their hands without

leaving the slightest dent.

“Think of something else,” said Bastian angrily. “My patience is wearing thin.”

Then he turned away, and while waiting for the Magnolia Pavilion to be made accessible, he and his retinue, consisting chiefly of Xayide, the three knights, Hysbald, Hykrion, and Hydorn, and Ilwan, the blue djinn, took possession of the remaining rooms of the palace.