The Neverending Story - Coloured Text, Images

by Michael Ende

  “That,” said the lion, “is because you’re carrying AURYN, the Gem.”

  “But does all this exist only after I’ve wished it? Or was it all there before?”

  “Both,” said Grograman.

  “How can that be?” Bastian cried almost impatiently. “You’ve been here in Goab, the Desert of Colors, since heaven knows when. The room in your palace was waiting for me since the beginning of time. So, too, was the sword Sikanda. You told me so yourself.”

  “That is true, master.”

  “But I—I’ve only been in Fantastica since last night! So it can’t be true that all these things have existed only since I came here.”

  “Master,” the lion replied calmly. “Didn’t you know that Fantastica is the land of stories? A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story.”

  “Then Perilin, too, must always have been there,” said the perplexed Bastian.

  “Beginning at the moment when you gave it its name,” Grograman replied, “it has existed forever.”

  “You mean that I created it?”

  The lion was silent for a while. Then he said: “Only the Childlike Empress can tell you that. It is she who has given you everything.”

  He arose.

  “Master, it’s time we went back to my palace. The sun is low in the sky and we have a long way to go.”

  That night Grograman lay down again on the black rock, and this time Bastian stayed with him. Few words passed between them. Bastian brought food and drink from the bedchamber, where once again the little table had been laid by an unseen hand. He seated himself on the steps leading to the lion’s rock, and there he ate his supper.

  When the light of the lamps grew dim and began to pulsate like a faltering heartbeat, he stood up and threw his arms around the lion’s neck. The mane was hard and looked like congealed lava. Then the gruesome sound was repeated. Bastian was no longer afraid, but again he wept at the thought of Grograman’s sufferings, for now he knew they would endure for all time.

  Later that night Bastian groped his way into the open and stood for a long while watching the soundless growth of the night plants. Then he went back into the cave and again lay down to sleep between the petrified lion’s paws.

  He stayed with Grograman for many days and nights, and they became friends. They spent many hours in the desert, playing wild games. Bastian would hide among the sand dunes, but Grograman always found him. They ran races, but the lion was a thousand times swifter than Bastian. They wrestled and there Bastian was the lion’s equal. Though of course it was only in fun, Grograman needed all his strength to hold his own. Neither could defeat the other.

  Once, after they had been wrestling and tumbling, Bastian sat down, somewhat out of breath, and said: “Couldn’t I stay with you forever?”

  The lion shook his mane. “No, master.”

  “Why not?”

  “Here there is only life and death, only Perilin and Goab, but no story. You must live your story. You cannot remain here.”

  “But how can I leave?” Bastian asked. “The desert is much too big, I’d never get to the end of it. And you can’t carry me out of it, because you take the desert with you.”

  “Only your wishes can guide you over the pathways of Fantastica,” said Grograman. “You must go from wish to wish. What you don’t wish for will always be beyond your reach. That is what the words “far” and “near” mean in Fantastica. And wishing to leave a place is not enough. You must wish to go somewhere else and let your wishes guide you.”

  “But I can’t wish to leave here,” said Bastian.

  “You must find your next wish,” said Grograman almost sternly.

  “And when I find it,” Bastian asked, “how will I be able to leave here?”

  “I will tell you,” said Grograman gravely. “There is in Fantastica a certain place from which one can go anywhere and which can be reached from anywhere. We call it the Temple of a Thousand Doors. No one has ever seen it from outside. The inside is a maze of doors. Anyone wishing to know it must dare to enter it.”

  “But how is that possible if it can’t be approached from outside?”

  “Every door in Fantastica,” said the lion, “even the most ordinary stable, kitchen, or cupboard door, can become the entrance to the Temple of a Thousand Doors at the right moment. And none of these thousand doors leads back to where one came from. There is no return.”

  “And once someone is inside,” Bastian asked, “can he get out and go somewhere?”

  “Yes,” said the lion. “But it’s not as simple as in other buildings. Only a genuine wish can lead you through the maze of the thousand doors. Without a genuine wish, you just have to wander around until you know what you really want. And that can take a long time.”

  “How will I find the entrance?”

  “You’ve got to wish it.”

  Bastian pondered a long while. Then he said: “It seems strange that we can’t just wish what we please. Where do our wishes come from? What is a wish anyway?”

  Grograman gave the boy a long, earnest look, but made no answer.

  Some days later they had another serious talk.

  Bastian had shown the lion the inscription on the reverse side of the Gem. “What do you suppose it means?” he asked. “ ‘DO WHAT YOU WISH.’ That must mean I can do anything I feel like. Don’t you think so?”

  All at once Grograman’s face looked alarmingly grave, and his eyes glowed.

  “No,” he said in his deep, rumbling voice. “It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult.”

  “What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?”

  “It’s your own deepest secret and you yourself don’t know it.”

  “How can I find out?”

  “By going the way of your wishes, from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want.”

  “That doesn’t sound so hard,” said Bastian.

  “It is the most dangerous of all journeys.”

  “Why?” Bastian asked. “I’m not afraid.”

  “That isn’t it,” Grograman rumbled. “It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there’s no other journey on which it’s so easy to lose yourself forever.”

  “Do you mean because our wishes aren’t always good?” Bastian asked.

  The lion lashed the sand he was lying on with his tail. His ears lay flat, he screwed up his nose, and his eyes flashed fire. Involuntarily Bastian ducked when Grograman’s voice once again made the earth tremble: “What do you know about wishes? How would you know what’s good and what isn’t?”

  In the days that followed Bastian thought a good deal about what the Many-Colored Death had said. There are some things, however, that we cannot fathom by thinking about them, but only by experience. So it was not until much later, after all manner of adventures, that he thought back on Grograman’s words and began to understand them.

  At this time another change took place in Bastian. Since his meeting with Moon Child he had received many gifts. Now he was favored with a new one: courage. And again something was taken away from him, namely, the memory of his past timidity.

  Since he was no longer afraid of anything, a new wish began, imperceptibly at first, then more distinctly, to take shape within him: the wish to be alone no longer. Even in the company of the Many-Colored Death he was alone in a way. He wanted to exhibit his talents to others, to be admired and to become famous.

  And one night as he was watching Perilin grow, it suddenly came to him that he was doing so for the last time, that he would have to bid the grandiose Night Forest goodbye. An inner voice was calling him away.

  He cast a last glance at the magnificently glowing colors. Then he descended to the darkness of Grograman’s palace and tomb, and sat down on the steps. He couldn’t have said what he was waiting for, but he knew that he could not sleep that night.

  He
must have dozed a little, for suddenly he started as if someone had called his name.

  The door leading to the bedchamber had opened. Through the cleft a long strip of reddish light shone into the dark cave.

  Bastian stood up. Had the door been transformed for this moment into the entrance of the Temple of a Thousand Doors? Hesitantly he approached the cleft and tried to peer through. He couldn’t see a thing. Then slowly the cleft began to close. In a moment his only chance would pass.

  He turned back to Grograman, who lay motionless, with eyes of dead stone, on his pedestal. The strip of light from the door fell full on him.

  “Goodbye, Grograman, and thanks for everything,” he said softly. “I’ll come again, I promise, I’ll come again.”

  Then he slipped through the cleft, and instantly the door closed behind him.

  Bastian didn’t know that he would not keep his promise. Much much later someone would come in his name and keep it for him.

  But that’s another story and shall be told another time.

  urple light passed in slow waves across the floor and the walls of the room. It was a hexagonal room, rather like the enlarged cell of a honeycomb. Every second wall had a door in it, and on the intervening walls were painted strange pictures representing land scapes and creatures who seemed to be half plant and half animal. Bastian had entered through one of the doors; the other two, to the right and left of it, were exactly the same shape, but the left-hand door was black, while the right-hand one was white. Bastian chose the white door.

  In the next room the light was yellowish. Here again the walls formed a hexagon. The pictures represented all manner of contrivances that meant nothing to Bastian. Were they tools or weapons? The two doors leading onward to the right and left were the same color, yellow, but the left-hand one was tall and narrow, while the one on the right was low and wide. Bastian chose the left-hand one.

  The next room was hexagonal like the others, but the light was bluish. The pictures on the walls were of intricate ornaments or characters in a strange alphabet. Here the two doors were the same color, but of different material, one of wood, the other of metal. Bastian chose the wooden door.

  It is not possible to describe all the doors and rooms through which Bastian passed during his stay in the Temple of a Thousand Doors. There were doors that looked like large keyholes, and others that resembled the entrances to caves, there were golden doors and rusty iron doors, some were padded and some were studded with nails, some were paper-thin and others as thick as the doors of treasure houses; there was one that looked like a giant’s mouth and another that had to be opened like a drawbridge, one that suggested a big ear and one that was made of gingerbread, one that was shaped like an oven door, and one that had to be unbuttoned. The two doors leading out of a room always had something in common—the shape, the material, the size, the color—but there was always some essential difference between them.

  Bastian had passed many times from one hexagonal room to another. Every decision he made led to another decision that led to yet another decision. But after all these decisions he was still in the Temple of a Thousand Doors. As he went on and on, he began to wonder why this should be. His wish had sufficed to lead him into the maze, but apparently it was not definite enough to enable him to find the way out. He had wished for company. But now he realized that by company he had meant no one in particular. This vague wish hadn’t helped him at all. Thus far his decisions had been based on mere whim and involved very little thought. In every case he might just as well have taken the other door. At this rate he would never find his way out.

  Just then he was in a room with a greenish light. Three of the six walls had variously shaped clouds painted on them. The door to the left was of white mother-of-pearl, the one on the right of ebony. And suddenly he knew whom he wished for: Atreyu!

  The mother-of-pearl door reminded Bastian of Falkor the luck-dragon, whose scales glistened like mother-of-pearl. So he decided on that one.

  In the next room one of the two doors was made of plaited grass, the other was an iron grating. Just then Bastian was thinking of the Grassy Ocean where Atreyu was at home, so he picked the grass door.

  In the next room he found two doors which differed only in that one was made of leather and the other of felt. Bastian chose the leather one.

  Then he was faced with two more doors, and again he had time to think. One was purple, the other olive green. Atreyu was a Greenskin and his cloak was made from the hide of a purple buffalo. A symbol such as Atreyu had had on his forehead and cheeks when Cairon came to him was painted in white on the olive-green door. But the purple door had the same symbol on it, and Bastian didn’t know that Atreyu’s cloak had been ornamented with just such symbols. That door, he thought, must lead to someone else, not to Atreyu.

  He opened the olive-green door—and then he was outside.

  To his surprise he found himself not in the Grassy Ocean but in a bright springtime forest. Sunbeams shone through the young foliage and played their games of light and shade on the mossy ground. The place smelled of earth and mushrooms and the balmy air was filled with the twittering of birds.

  Bastian turned around and saw that he had just stepped out of a little forest chapel. For that moment its door had been the way out of the Temple of a Thousand Doors. Bastian opened it again, but all he saw was the inside of a small chapel. The roof consisted only of a few rotten beams, and the walls were covered with moss.

  Bastian started walking. He had no idea where he was going, but he felt certain that sooner or later he would find Atreyu. The thought made him so happy that he whistled to the birds, who answered him and sang every merry tune that entered his head.

  A while later he caught sight of a group of figures in a clearing. As he came closer, they proved to be four men in magnificent armor and a beautiful lady, who was sitting on the grass, strumming a lute. Five richly caparisoned horses and a pack mule were standing in the background. A white cloth laid with all manner of viands and drink was spread out on the grass before the company.

  Before joining the group, Bastian hid the Childlike Empress’s amulet under his shirt. He thought it best to see what these people were up to before allowing himself to be recognized.

  The men stood up and bowed low at his approach, evidently taking him for an Oriental prince or something of the kind. The fair lady nodded, smiled at him, and went on strumming her lute. One of the men was taller than the rest and more magnificently clad. He had fair hair that hung down over his shoulders.

  “I am Hero Hynreck,” he announced, “and this lady is Princess Oglamar, daughter of the king of Luna. These men are my friends Hykrion, Hysbald, and Hydorn. And what may your name be, young friend?”

  “I may not say my name—not yet,” Bastian replied.

  “A vow?” Princess Oglamar asked on a note of mockery. “So young, and you’ve already made a vow?”

  “Have you come a long way?” Hero Hynreck inquired.

  “A very long way,” Bastian replied.

  “Are you a prince?” asked the princess with a gracious smile.

  “That I may not reveal,” said Bastian

  “Well, welcome in any case to our gathering!” cried Hero Hynreck. “Will you honor us by partaking of our repast?”

  Bastian accepted with thanks, sat down, and began to eat.

  From the conversation between the lady and the four knights Bastian learned that a tournament was to be held in the large and magnificent Silver City of Amarganth, which was not far distant. From far and near the boldest heroes, the most skillful hunters, the bravest warriors, and all manner of adventurers as well, had come to take part. Only the three bravest and best, who defeated all the others, were to have the honor of joining in a long and perilous expedition, the aim of which was to find a certain person, the so-called Savior, who was known to be somewhere in one of the numerous regions of Fantastica. Thus far no one knew his name. It appeared that at some time in the past Fantastica had been s
truck by disaster, but that this Savior had appeared on the scene and saved it in the nick of time by giving the Childlike Empress the name of Moon Child, by which she was now known to everyone in Fantastica. Since then he had been wandering about the country unknown, and the purpose of the expedition was to find him and keep him safe by serving him as a kind of bodyguard. Only the bravest and ablest men would be chosen for the mission, since it seemed more than likely that formidable adventures awaited them.

  The tournament at which the three were to be chosen had been organized by Querquobad, the Silver Sage—the city of Amarganth was always ruled by its oldest man or woman, and Querquobad was a hundred and seven years old. The winners, however, would not be selected by him, but by one Atreyu, a young Greenskin, who was then visiting Sage Querquobad. This Atreyu was to lead the expedition. For he alone was capable of recognizing the Savior, since he had seen him once in his magic mirror.

  Bastian listened in silence. It wasn’t easy for him, for he soon realized that this Savior was his very own self. And when Atreyu’s name came up, his heart laughed within him, and he found it very hard not to give himself away. But he was determined to keep his identity a secret for the present.

  Hero Hynreck, as it turned out, was not so much concerned with the expedition as with the heart of Princess Oglamar. Bastian had seen at a glance that he was head over heels in love with the young lady. For no apparent reason he kept sighing and casting mournful glances at her. And she would pretend not to notice. As Bastian learned later on, she had vowed to marry no one but the greatest of all heroes, who proved himself able to defeat all others. She wouldn’t be satisfied with less. But how could Hero Hynreck prove that he was the greatest? After all, he couldn’t just go out and kill someone who had done him no harm. And as for wars, there hadn’t been any for ages. He would gladly have fought monsters or demons, he would gladly have brought her a fresh dragon’s tail for breakfast every morning, but far and wide there were no monsters, demons, or dragons to be found. So naturally, when the messenger from Querquobad, the Silver Sage, had invited him to the tournament, he had accepted forthwith. But Princess Oglamar had insisted on coming along, for she wanted to see his performance with her own eyes.