The Neverending Story (48 page)

Dame Eyola’s face was now in the darkness.

“Yes,” he heard her say. “My mother and my grandmother also wanted a child. They never had one but I have one now.”

Bastian’s eyes closed. He barely managed to ask: “How can that be? Your mother had you when you were little. And your grandmother had your mother.”

“No, my darling boy,” said the voice hardly above a whisper. “With us it’s different. We don’t die and we’re not born. We’re always the same Dame Eyola, and then again we’re not. When my mother grew old, she withered. All her leaves fell, as the leaves fall from a tree in the winter. She withdrew into herself. And so she remained for a long time. But then one day she put forth young leaves, buds, blossoms, and finally fruit. And that’s how I came into being, for I was the new Dame Eyola. And it was just the same with my grandmother when she brought my mother into the world. We Dames Eyola can only have a child if we wither first. And then we’re our own child and we can’t be a mother anymore. That’s why I’m so glad you’re here, my darling boy . . .”

Bastian spoke no more. He had slipped into a sweet half-sleep in which he heard her words as a kind of chant. He heard her stand up and cross the room and bend over him. She stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead. Then he felt her pick him up and carry him out in her arms. He buried his head in her bosom like a baby. Deeper and deeper he sank into the warm sleepy darkness. He felt that he was being undressed and put into a soft, sweet-smelling bed. And then he heard her lovely voice singing far in the distance:

“Sleep, my darling, good night.

Your sufferings are past.

Great lord, be a little child at last.

Sleep, my darling, sleep tight.”

When he woke up the next morning, he felt better and happier than ever before.

He looked around and saw that he was in a cozy little room—lying in a crib. Actually, it was a very large crib, or rather it was as large as a crib must look to a baby. For a moment this struck him as ridiculous, because he certainly wasn’t a baby anymore, and he was still in possession of all the powers and gifts that Fantastica had given him. The Childlike Empress’s amulet was still hanging from his neck. But in the very next moment he stopped caring whether it was ridiculous or not. No one but him and Dame Eyola would ever find out, and they both knew that everything was just as it should be.

He got up, washed, dressed, and left the room, A flight of wooden steps took him to the big dining room, which had turned into a kitchen overnight. Dame Eyola had breakfast all ready for him. She too was in high spirits, her flowers were in full bloom. She sang and laughed and even danced around the kitchen table with him. After breakfast she sent him outside to get some fresh air.

In the great rose garden around the House of Change it was summer, a summer that seemed eternal. Bastian sauntered about, watched the bees feasting on the flowers, listened to the birds that were singing in every rosebush; played with the lizards, which were so tame that they crawled up on his hand, and with the hares, which let him stroke them. From time to time he crept under a bush, smelled the sweet scent of the roses, blinked up at the sun, and thinking of nothing in particular, let the time glide by like a brook.

Days became weeks. He paid no attention. Dame Eyola was merry, and Bastian surrendered himself to her motherly care and tenderness. It seemed to him that without knowing it he had long hungered for something which was now being given him in abundance. And he just couldn’t get enough of it.

He spent whole days rummaging through the House of Change from attic to cellar. He never got bored, because the rooms were always changing and there was always something new to discover. Clearly the house was at pains to entertain its guest. It produced playrooms, railway trains, puppet theaters, jungle gyms. There was even a big merry-go-round.

Or else he would explore the surrounding country. But he never went too far from the House of Change, for suddenly he would be overcome by a craving for Dame Eyola’s fruit, and when that happened, he could hardly wait to get back to her and eat his fill.

In the evening they had long talks. He told her about all his adventures in Fantastica, about Perilin and Grograman, about Xayide and Atreyu, whom he had wounded so cruelly and perhaps even killed.

“I did everything wrong,” he said. “I misunderstood everything. Moon Child gave me so much, and all I did with it was harm, harm to myself and harm to Fantastica.”

Dame Eyola gave him a long look.

“No,” she said. “I don’t believe so. You went the way of wishes, and that is never straight. You went the long way around, but that was your way. And do you know why? Because you are one of those who can’t go back until they have found the fountain from which springs the Water of Life. And that’s the most secret place in Fantastica. There’s no simple way of getting there.”

After a short silence she added: “But every way that leads there is the right one.”

Suddenly Bastian began to cry. He didn’t know why. He felt as if a knot in his heart had come open and dissolved into tears. He sobbed and he sobbed and couldn’t stop. Dame Eyola took him on her lap and stroked him. He buried his face in the flowers on her bosom and wept until he was too tired to weep anymore.

That evening they talked no more.

But next day Bastian brought up the subject again.

“Do you know where I can find the Water of Life?”

“On the borders of Fantastica.”

“I thought Fantastica had no borders.”

“It has, though. Only they’re not outside but inside. In the place where the Childlike Empress gets all her power from, but where she herself cannot go.”

“How am I to find the way there?” asked Bastian. “Isn’t it too late?”

“There’s only one wish that can take you there: your last.”

Bastian was terrified. “Dame Eyola—all the wishes that have come true thanks to AURYN have made me forget something. Will it be the same with this one?”

She nodded slowly.

“But if I don’t notice it!”

“Did you notice it other times? Once you’ve forgotten something you don’t know you ever had it.”

“What am I forgetting now?”

“I’ll tell you at the proper time. If I told you now, you’d hold on to it.”

“Must I lose everything?”

“Nothing is lost,” she said. “Everything is transformed.”

“But then,” said Bastian in alarm, “I ought to hurry. I shouldn’t be staying here.”

She stroked his hair.

“Don’t worry. It will take time, but when your last wish is awakened, you’ll know it—and so will I.”

From that day on something began indeed to change, though Bastian himself noticed nothing at first. The transforming power of the House of Change was taking effect. But like all true transformations, it was as slow and gentle as the growth of a plant.

The days in the House of Change passed, and it was still summer. Bastian still enjoyed letting Dame Eyola spoil him like a child. Her fruit still tasted as delicious to him as at the start, but little by little his craving had been stilled. He ate less than before. Dame Eyola noticed, though she never mentioned it. He also felt that he had had his fill of her care and tenderness. And as his need for them dwindled, a longing of a very different kind made itself felt, a desire that he had never felt before and that was different in every way from all his previous wishes: the longing to be capable of loving. With surprise and dismay he recognized that he could not love. And the wish became stronger and stronger.

One evening as they were sitting together, he spoke of it to Dame Eyola.

After listening to him, she said nothing for a long while. She looked at Bastian with an expression that puzzled him.

“Now you have found your last wish,” she said finally. “What you really and truly want is to love.”

“But why can’t I, Dame Eyola?”

“You won’t be able to until you have drunk of the Water of Life,” she said. “And you can’t go back to your own world unless you take some of it back for others.”

Bastian was bewildered. “But what about you?” he asked. “Haven’t you drunk of it?”

“No,” said Dame Eyola. “It’s different for me. I only needed someone to whom I could give my excess.”

“But isn’t that love?”

Dame Eyola pondered a while, then she said: “It was the effect of
your
wish.”

“Can’t Fantasticans love? Are they like me?” he asked anxiously.

She answered: “There are some few creatures in Fantastica, so I’m told, who get to drink of the Water of Life. But no one knows who they are. And there is a prophecy, which we seldom speak of, that sometime in the distant future humans will bring love to Fantastica. Then the two worlds will be one. But what that means I don’t know.”

“Dame Eyola,” Bastian asked, “you promised that when the right moment came you’d tell me what I had to forget to find my last wish. Has the time come?”

She nodded.

“You had to forget your father and mother. Now you have nothing left but your name.”

Bastian pondered.

“Father and mother?” he said slowly. But the words had lost all meaning for him. He had forgotten.

“What must I do now?” he asked.

“You must leave me. Your time in the House of Change is over.”

“Where must I go?”

“Your last wish will guide you. Don’t lose it.”

“Should I go now?”

“No, it’s late. Tomorrow at daybreak. You have one more night in the House of Change. Now we must go to bed.”

Bastian stood up and went over to her. Only then, only when he was close to her, did he notice that all her flowers had faded.

“Don’t let it worry you,” she said. “And don’t worry about tomorrow morning. Go your way. Everything is just as it should be. Good night, my darling boy.”

“Good night, Dame Eyola,” Bastian murmured.

Then he went up to his room.

When he came down the next day, he saw that Dame Eyola was still in the same place. All her leaves, flowers, and fruits had fallen from her. Her eyes were closed and she looked like a black, dead tree. For a long time he stood there gazing at her. Then suddenly a door opened.

Before going out, he turned around once again and said, without knowing whether he was speaking to Dame Eyola or to the house or both: “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

Then he went out through the door. Winter had come overnight. The snow lay knee-deep and nothing remained of the flowering rose garden but bare, black thornbushes. Not a breeze stirred. It was bitter cold and very still.

Bastian wanted to go back into the house for his mantle, but the doors and windows had vanished. It had closed itself up all around. Shivering, he started on his way.

  or, the blind miner, was standing beside his hut, listening for sounds on the snow-covered plain around him. The silence was so complete that his sensitive hearing picked up the crunching of footsteps in the snow far in the distance. And he knew that the steps were coming his way.

Yor was an old man, but his face was beardless and without a wrinkle. Everything about him, his dress, his face, his hair, was stone gray. As he stood there motionless, he seemed carved from congealed lava. Only his blind eyes were dark, and deep within them there was a glow, as of a small, bright flame.