The Neverending Story

by Michael Ende

in any other familiar place he had no fear of the dark, but this enormous attic with all these weird things in it was something else again. The match burned his fingers and he threw it away. For a while he just stood there and listened. The rain had let up and now he could barely hear the drumming on the big tin roof. Then he remembered the rusty, seven-armed candelabrum he had seen. He groped his way across the room, found the candelabrum, and dragged it to his pile of mats. He lit the wicks in the thick stubs – all seven – and a golden light spread. The flames crackled faintly and wavered now and then in the draft. With a sigh of relief, Bastian picked up the book.

buoyed

‘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 …’

‘Who are you?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Who am I?’

‘I don’t know. I have a feeling that I once knew. But does it matter?’

‘If questions you would ask of me, You must speak in poetry, For rhymeless talk that strikes my ear I...

‘I hope it isn’t going too far, But could you tell me who you are?’

‘I hear you now, your words are clear, I understand as well as hear.’

‘I thank you, friend, for your good will. I’m glad that you have come to me. I am Uyulala, the voice of silence. In the Palace of Deep Mystery.’

‘Oh, Uyulala, tell me where you’re hid. I cannot see you and so wish I did.’

‘Never has anyone seen me, Never do I appear. You will never see me, And yet I am here.’

‘Have you no body, is that what you mean? Or is it only that you can’t be seen?’

‘Yes and no and neither one. I do not appear In the brightness of the sun As you appear, For my body is but sound That one can hear but never see, And this voice you’re hearing now Is all there is of me.’

‘Do I understand you right? Your body is this melody? But what if you should cease to sing? Would you cease to be?’

‘Once my song is ended, What comes to others soon or late,

When their bodies pass away, Will also be my fate. My life will last the time of my song, But that will not be long.’

‘Why are you so sad? Why are you crying? You sound so young. Why speak of dying?’

‘I am only a song of lament, The wind will blow me away. But tell me now why you were sent. What have you come to say?’

‘Uyulala is answer. Answers on questions feed. So ask me what you’ve come to ask,

For questions are her need.’

‘Then help me, Uyulala, tell me why You sing a plaint as if you soon must die.’

‘The Childlike Empress is sick, And with her Fantastica will die. The Nothing will swallow this place, It will perish and so will I. We shall vanish into the Nowhere and Never, As though we had never been. The Empress needs a new name To make her well again.’

‘Oh, tell me, Uyulala, oh, tell me who can give The Childlike Empress the name, which alone will let her live.’

‘Listen and listen well To the truth I have to tell. Though your spirit may be blind To the sense of what I say, Print my words upon your mind Before you go away. Later you may dredge them up From the depths of memory, Raise them to the light of day Exactly as they flow from me. Everything depends on whether You remember faithfully.’

‘Who can give the Childlike Empress The new name that will make her well? Not you, not I, no elf, no djinn, Can save us from the evil spell.

For we are figures in a book – We do what we were invented for, But we can fashion nothing new And cannot change from what we are. But there’s a realm outside Fantastica, The Outer World is its name, The people who live there are rich indeed And not at all the same. Born of the Word, the children of man, Or humans, as they’re sometimes called, Have had the gift of giving names Ever since our worlds began, In every age it’s they who gave The Childlike Empress life, For wondrous new names have the power to save. But now for many and many a day, No human has visited Fantastica, For they no longer know the way. They have forgotten how real we are, They don’t believe in us anymore. Oh, if only one child of man would come,

Oh, then at last the thing would be done. If only one would hear our plea. For them it is near, but for us too far, Never can we go out to them, For theirs is the world of reality. But tell me, my hero, you ...

‘I will remember. I will remember every word. But tell me, what shall I do with what I’ve heard?’

‘That is for you alone to decide. I’ve told you what was in my heart. So this is when our ways divide, When you and I must part.’

‘But if you go away, Where will you stay?’

‘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.’

‘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.’

Ah, thought Bastian. 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.’

sphinxes

Gnomics

luckdragon.

balustrade

observatory.

sinuous

‘Atreyu, my friend and master! So you’ve finally come back! I’m so glad! We had almost given up hope – the gnomes, that is, not I.’

I’m glad too!’

‘But what has happened in this one night?...

‘Do you think it’s been only one night? You’re in for a surprise. Clim...

‘You’ll just have to get used to it.’ ‘At least,’

‘you seem to be well again.’ ‘Pretty near,’

‘Not q...

The clock in the belfry struck five. Bastian thought sadly of the two chocolate nut bars that he kept in his bedside table at home in case he should be hungry at night. If he had suspected that he would never go back there, he could have brought them along as an iron ration. But it was too late to think of that now.