The Neverending Story

  “With me?” cried Yikka, almost frightened. “But I’m only a mule, and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “In his eyes,” said Bastian in an undertone, “you’re the most beautiful creature in all Fantastica just as you are. And also perhaps because you’ve carried me. But he’s very bashful, he doesn’t dare approach you with all these creatures about. You must go to him or he’ll die of longing for you.”

  “Myohmy!” Yikka sighed. “Is it as bad as all that?”

  “Yes,” Bastian whispered in her ear. “And now, goodbye, Yikka. Just run along, you’ll find him.”

  Yikka took a few steps, but then she looked back again.

  “Frankly,” she said. “I’m kind of scared.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” said Bastian with a smile. “And don’t forget to tell your children and grandchildren about me.”

  “Thank you, master,” said Yikka, and off she went.

  For a long while Bastian looked after her as she hobbled off. He wasn’t really happy about sending her away. He went to his luxurious tent, lay down on the soft cushions, and gazed at the ceiling. He kept telling himself that he had made Yikka’s dearest wish come true. But that didn’t make him feel any better. A person’s reason for doing someone a good turn matters as much as the good turn itself.

  But that made no difference to Yikka, for she really did find the white, winged stallion. They married and she had a son who was a white, winged mule. His name was Pataplan and he made quite a name for himself in Fantastica, but that’s another story and shall be told another time.

  From then on Bastian traveled in Xayide’s litter. She even offered to get out and walk alongside so as to give him every possible comfort, but that was more than Bastian would accept. So they sat together in the comfortable red-coral litter, which from then on led the procession.

  Bastian was still rather gloomy and felt a certain resentment toward Xayide for persuading him to part with his mule. He kept answering her in monosyllables, so that no real conversation was possible. Xayide soon realized what the trouble was.

  To guide his thoughts into different channels, she said brightly: “I would like to make you a present, my lord and master, if you deign to accept one from me.”

  She rummaged under her cushions and found a richly ornamented casket. As Bastian tingled with eagerness, she opened it and took out a belt with chain links. Each link as well as the clasp was made of clear glass.

  “What is it?” Bastian asked.

  “It’s a belt that makes its wearer invisible. But if you want it to belong to you, my lord, you must give it its name.”

  Bastian examined it. “The belt Ghemmal,” he said then.

  Xayide nodded. “Now it is yours,” she said with a smile. Bastian took the belt and held it irresolutely in his hand.

  “Would you like to try it now?” she asked. “Just to see how it works?”

  To Bastian’s surprise, the belt was a perfect fit. But it gave him a most unpleasant feeling not to see his own body. He wanted to take the belt off, but that wasn’t so easy since he could see neither the buckle nor his own hands.

  “Help!” he cried in a panic, suddenly afraid that he would never find the buckle and would remain invisible forever.

  “You have to learn to handle it,” said Xayide. “I had the same trouble at first. Permit me to help you, my lord and master.”

  She reached into the empty air. A moment later she had unfastened the belt and Bastian was relieved to see himself again. He laughed, while Xayide drew smoke from her water pipe and smiled.

  If nothing else, she had cheered him up.

  “Now you are safe from harm,” she said gently, “and that means more to me than you can imagine.”

  “Harm?” asked Bastian, still slightly befuddled. “What sort of harm?”

  “Oh, no one can contend with you,” Xayide whispered. “Not if you are wise. The danger is inside you, and that’s why it’s hard to protect you against it.”

  “Inside me? What does that mean?”

  “A wise person stands above things, he neither loves nor hates. But you, my lord, set store by friendship. Your heart should be as cold and indifferent as a snow-covered mountain peak, and it isn’t. That’s why someone can harm you.”

  “Someone? What someone?”

  “Someone you still care for in spite of all his insolence.”

  “Speak more plainly.”

  “That rude, arrogant little savage from the Greenskin country, my lord.”

  “Atreyu?”

  “Yes, and that outrageous, impertinent Falkor!”

  “You think they’d want to harm me?” Bastian could hardly keep from laughing.

  Xayide bowed her head and said nothing.

  “I’ll never believe that,” said Bastian. “I won’t listen to another word.”

  Xayide still said nothing. She bowed her head still lower.

  After a long silence Bastian asked: “What do you suppose Atreyu is plotting?”

  “My lord,” Xayide whispered. “I wish I hadn’t spoken.”

  “Well, now that you’ve started,” Bastian cried, “tell me everything. Stop beating about the bush. What do you know?”

  “I tremble at your anger, my lord,” Xayide stammered, and true enough, she was all atremble. “But even if it costs me my life, I will tell you. Atreyu is plotting to take the Childlike Empress’s amulet away from you, by stealth or by force.”

  For a moment Bastian could hardly breathe.

  “Can you prove it?” he asked.

  Xayide shook her head.

  “My knowledge,” she murmured, “is not of the kind that can be proved.”

  “Then keep it to yourself,” said Bastian, the blood rising to his face. “And don’t malign the truest, bravest boy in all Fantastica.”

  With that he jumped out of the litter and left her.

  Xayide’s fingers played with the snake’s head and her green-and-red eyes glowed. After a while she smiled again. Violet smoke rose from her mouth and she whispered: “You will see, my lord and master. The belt Ghemmal will show you.”

  When the camp was set up that night, Bastian went to his tent. He ordered Ilwan, the blue djinn, not to admit anyone, and especially not Xayide. He wanted to be alone and to think.

  What the sorceress had told him about Atreyu hardly seemed worth troubling his head about. He had something else on his mind: those few words she dropped about wisdom.

  He had been through so much; he had known joy and fear, discouragement and triumph; he had rushed from wish fulfillment to wish fulfillment, never stopping to rest. And nothing had brought him calm and contentment. To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others. A truly wise man attached no importance to anything. Nothing could upset him and nothing could harm him. Yes, to be like that would be his final wish, the wish that would bring him to what he really wanted. Now he thought he understood what Grograman had meant by those words. And so he wished to become wise, the wisest being in Fantastica.

  A little later he stepped out of his tent.

  The moon cast its light on a landscape that he had scarcely noticed up until then. The tent city lay in a hollow ringed about by strangely shaped mountains. The silence was complete. The hollow was fairly well wooded, while on the mountain slopes the vegetation became more sparse and farther up there was none at all. The peaks formed all manner of figures, almost as though a giant sculptor had shaped them. No breeze was blowing and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The stars glittered and seemed nearer than usual.

  At the top of one of the highest peaks Bastian made out a sort of cupola. It seemed to be inhabited, for it gave off a faint light.

  “I’ve noticed it too, my lord,” said Ilwan in his rasping voice. He was standing at his post by the entrance to the tent. “What can it be?”

  He ha
d no sooner spoken than Bastian heard a strange cry in the distance. It suggested the long-drawn-out hooting of an owl, but it was deeper and louder. It sounded a second and then a third time, but now there were several voices.

  Owls they were indeed, six in number, as Bastian was soon to find out. Coming from the direction of the cupola, they glided at an incredible speed on almost motionless wings. Soon they were close enough for Bastian to see how amazingly large they were. Their eyes glittered, and their erect ears were capped with bundles of down. The flight was soundless, but as they landed, a faint whirring of their wings could be heard.

  Then they were sitting on the ground in front of Bastian’s tent, swiveling their heads with their great round eyes in all directions. Bastian went up to them.

  “Who are you?” he asked, “and who are you looking for?”

  “We were sent by Ushtu, the Mother of Intuition,” said one of the six owls. “We are messengers from Ghigam, the Star Cloister.”

  “What sort of cloister is that?” Bastian asked.

  “It is the home of wisdom,” said another of the owls, “where the Monks of Knowledge live.”

  “And who is Ushtu?” Bastian asked.

  “One of the Three Deep Thinkers who direct the cloister and instruct the monks,” said a third owl. “We are the night messengers, which puts us in her department.”

  “If it were daytime,” said the fourth owl, “Shirkry, the Father of Vision, would have sent his messengers, who are eagles. And in the twilight hours between day and night, Yisipu, the Son of Reason, sends his messengers, who are foxes.”

  “Who are Shirkry and Yisipu?”

  “They are the other Deep Thinkers, our Superiors.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “We are looking for the Great Knower,” said the sixth owl. “The Three Deep Thinkers know he is in this tent city and have sent us to beg him for illumination.”

  “The Great Knower?” asked Bastian. “Who’s that?”

  “His name,” replied all six owls at once, “is Bastian Balthazar Bux.”

  “You’ve found him,” said Bastian. “It’s me.”

  They bowed low, which because of their jerky movements looked almost comical in spite of their great size.

  “The Three Deep Thinkers,” said the first owl, “beg you humbly and respectfully to visit them. They hope you will solve a problem they have been trying in vain to solve all their long lives.”

  Bastian stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  “Very well,” he answered after a while. “But I must take my two disciples with me.”

  “There are six of us,” said the owl. “Two of us will carry each one of you.”

  Bastian turned to the blue djinn.

  “Ilwan,” he said. “Bring me Atreyu and Xayide.”

  The djinn bowed and went his way.

  “What is this problem they want me to solve?” Bastian asked.

  “O Great Knower,” said one of the owls, “we are only poor ignorant messengers. We don’t even belong to the lowest rank of the Monks of Knowledge. How could we possibly have cognizance of the problem which the Deep Thinkers in all their long lives have been unable to solve?”

  A few minutes later Ilwan came back with Atreyu and Xayide. On the way he had told them what it was all about.

  As he stood before Bastian, Atreyu asked in an undertone: “Why me?”

  “Indeed,” said Xayide. “Why him?”

  “You will find out,” said Bastian.

  With admirable foresight, the owls had brought trapezes, one for every two owls. Bastian, Atreyu, and Xayide sat on the bars, and the great night birds, each holding a trapeze rope in its claws, rose into the air.

  When the travelers reached the Star Cloister of Ghigam, they round that the great cupola was only the uppermost part of a large building composed of many cubical compartments. It had innumerable little windows and its outer wall might have been taken for the continuation of a sheer cliff. An unbidden visitor could hardly have gained admittance to the place.

  The cubical compartments contained the cells of the Monks of Knowledge, the libraries, the refectories, and the lodgings of the messengers. The meeting hall, where the Three Deep Thinkers delivered their lectures, was situated under the cupola.

  The Monks of Knowledge were Fantasticans of all kinds, from every part of the realm. But anyone wishing to enter the cloister had to break off all contact with family and country. The lives of these monks were hard and frugal, devoted exclusively to knowledge. The community was far from accepting all applicants. The examinations were difficult and the Three Deep Thinkers set the highest standards. Thus there were seldom more than three hundred monks in the cloister at one time, but these were by far the most intelligent persons in all Fantastica. Occasionally the community dwindled to seven members, but even then there was no thought of relaxing the entrance requirements. At the moment the monks and monkesses numbered roughly two hundred.

  When Bastian, followed by Atreyu and Xayide, was led into the large lecture hall, he saw a motley assortment of Fantasticans, who differed from his own retinue only in that they all were dressed in rough dark-brown monk’s robes. A wandering cliff or a tiny must have looked very strange in such an outfit.

  The Superiors of the order, the Three Deep Thinkers, were built like humans except for their heads. Ushtu, the Mother of Intuition, had the head of an owl; Shirkry, the Father of Vision, the head of an eagle; and Yisipu, the Son of Reason, the head of a fox. They sat in raised stone chairs and looked enormous. The sight of them seemed to intimidate Atreyu and even Xayide. But Bastian stepped right up to them.

  With a motion of his head, Shirkry, who was evidently the oldest of the three and was sitting in the middle, indicated an empty chair facing the Deep Thinkers. Bastian sat down in it.

  After a prolonged silence, Shirkry spoke. He spoke softly, but his voice sounded surprisingly deep and full.

  “Since time immemorial we have been pondering the enigma of our world. Yisipu’s reasonings in the matter are different from Ushtu’s intuitions, and Ushtu’s intuitions differ from my vision, which in turn is different from Yisipu’s reasonings. This is intolerable and must not be allowed to go on. That is why we have asked the Great Knower to come here and instruct us. Are you willing?”

  “I am,” said Bastian.

  “Then, O Great Knower, hear our question: What is Fantastica?”

  After a short silence Bastian replied: “Fantastica is the Neverending Story.”

  “Give us time to understand your answer,” said Shirkry. “Let us meet again here tomorrow at the same hour.”

  Silently the Three Deep Thinkers and the Monks of Knowledge arose, and all left the hall.

  Bastian, Atreyu, and Xayide were led to guest cells, where a simple meal awaited them. Their beds were wooden planks covered with rough woolen blankets. Though this didn’t matter to Bastian and Atreyu, Xayide would have liked to conjure up a more comfortable bed. But she soon found to her dismay that her magic powers were without effect in this cloister.

  Late the following night the monks and the Three Deep Thinkers met again in the great meeting hall. Once again Bastian occupied the high seat. Xayide and Atreyu sat to the left and right of him.

  This time it was Ushtu, the Mother of Intuition, who scrutinized Bastian with her great owl’s eyes and said: “We have meditated on your answer, O Great Knower. But a new question has occurred to us. If, as you say, Fantastica is the Neverending Story, where is the Neverending Story to be found?”

  After a short silence Bastian replied: “In a book bound with copper-colored silk.”

  “Give us time to understand your words,” said Ushtu. “Let us meet again tomorrow at the same hour.”

  When they had gathered in the meeting hall the following night, Yisipu, the Son of Reason, took the floor.

  “Again we have meditated on your answer, O Great Knower,” he said. “And again a new question comes to perplex us. If our world, Fantastic
a, is a Neverending Story and if this Neverending Story is in a book bound in copper-colored silk—where then is this book?”

  After a short silence Bastian replied: “In the attic of a schoolhouse.”

  “O Great Knower,” said the fox-headed Yisipu, “we do not doubt the truth of what you say. But now we would like to ask you to let us see this truth. Can you do that?”

  Bastian thought it over. Then he said: “I believe I can.”

  Atreyu looked at Bastian with surprise. Xayide too had a questioning look in her red-and-green eyes.

  “Let us meet again tomorrow night at the same hour,” said Bastian. “But not here. Let us meet on the roof of the Star Cloister. And then you must keep your eyes fixed on the heavens.”

  The following night was as clear as the three before it. At the appointed hour the Three Deep Thinkers and all the Monks of Knowledge were gathered on the roof of the Star Cloister. Atreyu and Xayide, who had no idea what Bastian was up to, were there too.

  Bastian climbed to the top of the great cupola and looked around. For the first time he saw the Ivory Tower far off on the horizon, shimmering in the moonlight.

  He took the stone Al Tsahir from his pocket. It sent out a soft glow. He then called to mind the inscription he had seen on the door of the Amarganth Library:

  . . . But if he says my name a second time

  from the end to the beginning,

  I will glow in one moment

  with the light of a hundred years.

  He held the stone up high and cried out: “Rihast-la!”

  At that moment there came a flash of lightning so bright that the stars paled and the dark cosmic space behind them was illumined. And that space was the schoolhouse attic with its age-blackened beams. In a moment the vision passed and the light of a hundred years was gone. Al Tsahir had vanished without a trace.

  It was some time before the eyes of those present, including Bastian’s, became accustomed to the feeble light of the moon and the stars.

  Shaken by what they had seen, all gathered in the great lecture hall. Bastian was the last to enter. The Monks of Knowledge and the Three Deep Thinkers arose from their seats and bowed low to him.