The Neverending Story

Almost half asleep, Atreyu asked:

  “But if you go away,

  Where will you stay?”

  Again he heard the sobbing in the voice, which receded more and more as it sang:

  “The Nothing has come near,

  The Oracle is dying.

  No one again will hear

  Uyulala laughing, sighing.

  You are the last to hear

  My voice among the columns,

  Sounding far and near.

  Perhaps you will accomplish

  What no one else has done,

  But to succeed, young hero,

  Remember what I have sung.”

  And then, farther and farther in the distance, Atreyu heard the words:

  “Oh, nothing can happen more than once,

  But all things must happen one day.

  Over hill and dale, over wood and stream,

  My dying voice will blow away.”

  That was the last Atreyu heard.

  He sat down, propped his back against a column, looked up at the night sky, and tried to understand what he had heard. Silence settled around him like a soft, warm cloak, and he fell asleep.

  When he awoke in the cold dawn, he was lying on his back, looking up at the sky.

  The last stars paled. Uyulala’s voice still sounded in his thoughts. And then suddenly he remembered everything that had gone before and the purpose of his Great Quest.

  At last he knew what was to be done. Only a human, a child of man, someone from the world beyond the borders of Fantastica, could give the Childlike Empress a new name. He would just have to find a human and bring him to her.

  Briskly he sat up.

  Ah, thought Bastion. How gladly I would help her! Her and Atreyu too. What a beautiful name I would think up! If I only knew how to reach Atreyu. I’d go this minute. Wouldn’t he be amazed if I were suddenly standing before him! But it’s impossible. Or is it?

  And then he said under his breath: “If there’s any way of my getting to you in Fantastica, tell me, Atreyu. I’ll come without fail. You’ll see.”

  When Atreyu looked around, he saw that the forest of columns with its stairways and terraces had vanished. Whichever way he looked there was only the empty plain that he had seen behind each of the three gates before going through. But now the gates were gone, all three of them.

  He stood up and again looked in all directions. It was then that he discovered, in the middle of the plain, a patch of Nothing like those he had seen in Howling Forest. But this time it was much nearer. He turned ar