He wondered in his distress how long a person could go without eating. Three days? Two? Maybe you’d get hallucinations after twenty-four hours. On his fingers Bastian counted the hours he had been there. At least ten. Maybe more. If only he had saved his sandwich, or at least his apple.
In the flickering candlelight the glass eyes of the fox, the owl, and the huge eagle looked almost alive. Their moving shadows loomed large on the attic wall.
Atreyu went out into the street again and wandered aimlessly about. He passed through neighborhoods where all the houses were small and so low that he could reach up to the eaves, and others lined with mansions many stories high, the fronts of which were adorned with statues. But all these statues were of skeletons or demons, which grimaced down at the forlorn wanderer.
Then suddenly he stopped stock-still.
From not far away he heard a raucous wailing that sounded so plaintive, so hopeless that it cut him to the heart. All the despair, all the desolation of the creatures of darkness was in that lament, which echoed back from the walls of distant buildings, until in the end it sounded like the howling of a scattered wolf pack.
Atreyu followed the sound, which gradually grew weaker and ended in a hoarse sob. He had to search for some time. He passed a gateway, entered a narrow, lightless court, passed through an arch, and finally came to a damp, grimy backyard. And there, chained, lay a gigantic, half-starved werewolf. Each rib stood out separately under its mangy fur, the vertebrae looked like the teeth of a saw, and its tongue dangled from its half-open mouth.
Slowly Atreyu approached him. When the werewolf noticed him, it raised its great head with a jerk. A greenish light flared up in its eyes.
For a time the two looked at each other without a word, without a sound. Finally the wolf let out a soft, dangerous-sounding growl: “Go away. Let me die in peace.”
Atreyu didn’t stir. Just as softly he answered: “I heard your call. That’s why I came.”
The werewolf’s head sank back. “I didn’t call anyone,” he growled. “I was singing my own dirge.”
“Who are you?” Atreyu asked, taking a step closer.
“I am Gmork, the werewolf.”
“Why are you lying here chained?”
“They forgot me when they went away.”
“Who are they?”
“The ones who chained me.”
“Where did they go?”
Gmork made no answer. He watched Atreyu from under half-closed lids. After a long silence, he said: “You don’t belong here, little stranger. Neither in this city, nor in this country. What have you come here for?”
Atreyu bowed his head.
“I don’t know how I got here. What is the name of this city?”
“It is the capital of the most famous country in all Fantastica,” said Gmork. “More stories are told about this country and this city than about any other. Surely you’ve heard of Spook City and the Land of Ghosts?”
Atreyu noded slowly.
Gmork hadn’t taken his eyes off the boy. He was amazed that this green-skinned boy should look at him so quietly out of his black eyes and show no sign of fear.
“And who are you?” he asked.
Atreyu thought a while before answering.
“I’m Nobody.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I once had a name. It can’t be named anymore. That makes me Nobody.”
The werewolf bared his hideous fangs for a moment in what was no doubt intended as a smile. He was familiar with mental anguish of every kind and sensed a certain kinship in the boy.
“If that’s the case,” he said, “then Nobody has heard me and Nobody has come to me, and Nobody is speaking to me in my last hour.”
Atreyu nodded again. Then he asked: “Can Nobody free you from your chain?”
The greenish light in the werewolf’s eyes flickered. He began to growl and to lick his chops.
“You’d really do that?” he blurted out. “You’d really set a hungry werewolf free? Do you know what that means? Nobody would be safe from me.”
“I know,” said Atreyu. “But I’m Nobody. Why should I be afraid of you?”
He wanted to approach Gmork. But again the wolf uttered his deep, terrifying growl. The boy shrank back.
“Don’t you want me to set you free?” he asked.
All at once the werewolf seemed very tired.
“You can’t do that. But if you come within my reach, I’ll have to tear you to pieces, my boy. That would delay my end a little, an hour or two. So keep away from me and let me die in peace.”
Atreyu thought it over.
“Maybe,” he said finally. “Maybe I can find you something to eat. I’ll look around.”
Slowly Gmork opened his eyes. The greenish fire had gone out of them.
“Go to hell, you little fool! Do you want to keep me alive until the Nothing gets here?”
“I thought,” Atreyu stammered, “that maybe if I brought you food and you were full, I could get close enough to take off your chain . . .”
Gmork gnashed his teeth.
“Do you think I wouldn’t have bitten through it myself if this were an ordinary chain?”
As though to prove his point, he clamped his jaws on the chain. The chain jangled as he tugged and pulled at it. After a while he let it go.
“It’s a magic chain. Only the person who put it on can take it off. But she will never come back.”
“Who is that?”
Gmork whimpered like a whipped dog. It was some time before he was calm enough to answer.
“It was Gaya, the Dark Princess.”
“Where has she gone?”
“She has leapt into the Nothing—like everyone else around here.”
Atreyu remembered the mad dancers he had seen outside the city in the foggy countryside.
“Why didn’t they run away?” he murmured.
“Because they had given up hope. That makes you beings weak. The Nothing pulls at you, and none of you has the strength to resist it for long.”
Gmork gave a deep, malignant laugh.
“What about yourself?” Atreyu asked. “You speak as if you weren’t one of us?”
Gmork watched him out of the corner of his eye.
“I am not one of you.”
“Then where are you from?”
“Don’t you know what a werewolf is?
Atreyu shook his head.
“You know only Fantastica,” said Gmork. “There are other worlds. The world of humans, for instance. But there are creatures who have no world of their own, but are able to go in and out of many worlds. I am one of those. In the human world, I appear in human form, but I’m not human. And in Fantastica, I take on a Fantastican form—but I’m not one of you.”
Atreyu sat down on the ground and gazed at the dying werewolf out of great dark eyes.
“You’ve been in the world of humans?”
“I’ve often gone back and forth between their world and yours.”
“Gmork,” Atreyu stammered, and he couldn’t keep his lips from trembling, “can you tell me the way to the world of humans?”
A green spark shone in Gmork’s eyes. He seemed to be laughing deep inside.
“For you and your kind it’s easy to get there. There’s only one hitch: You can never come back. You’ll have to stay forever. Do you want to?”
“What must I do?” Atreyu asked. His mind was made up.
“What everyone else around here has done before you. You must leap into the Nothing. But there’s no hurry. Because you’ll do it sooner or later in any case, when the last parts of Fantastica go.”
Atreyu stood up.
Gmork saw that the boy was trembling all over. Not knowing why, he spoke reassuringly: “Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t hurt.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Atreyu. “But I never expected to get my hope back in a place like this. And thanks to you!”
Gmork’s eyes glowed like two thin gr
een moons.
“You have nothing to hope for, sonny—whatever your plans may be. When you turn up in the world of humans, you won’t be what you are here. That’s the secret that no one in Fantastica can know.”
Atreyu stood there with his arms dangling. “What will I be? Tell me the secret.”
For a long time Gmork neither spoke nor moved. Atreyu was beginning to fear that the answer would never come, but at length the werewolf breathed heavily and spoke:
“What do you think I am, sonny? Your friend? Take care. I’m only passing the time with you. At the moment you can’t even leave here. I hold you fast with your hope.
But as I speak, the Nothing is creeping in from all sides and closing around Spook City.
Soon there will be no way out. Then you will be lost. If you stay and listen, your decision is already made. But you can still escape if you choose.”
The cruel line around Gmork’s mouth deepened. Atreyu hesitated for just a moment. Then he whispered: “Tell me the secret. What will I be in the world of humans?”
Again Gmork sank into a long silence. His breath came in convulsive gasps. Then suddenly he raised himself on his forepaws. Atreyu had to look up at him. And then for the first time he saw how big and terrifying the werewolf was. When Gmork spoke, his voice was like the jangling of chains.
“Have you seen the Nothing, sonny?”
“Yes, many times.”
“What does it look like?”
“As if one were blind.”
“That’s right—and when you get to the human world, the Nothing will cling to you. You’ll be like a contagious disease that makes humans blind, so they can no longer distinguish between reality and illusion. Do you know what you and your kind are called there?”
“No,” Atreyu whispered.
“Lies!” Gmork barked.
Atreyu shook his head. All the blood had gone out of his lips.
“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.
&nb
sp; “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?”