The Neverending Story (26 page)

  ever had Bastian slept so soundly as in that glowing red blossom. When at last he opened his eyes, the sky overhead was still a velvety black. He stretched and was happy to feel miraculous strength in his limbs.

Once again, there had been a change in him. His wish to be strong had come true.

When he stood up and looked out over the edge of the great blossom, Perilin seemed to have stopped growing. The Night Forest looked pretty much the same as when he had last seen it. He didn’t know that this too was connected with the fulfillment of his wish, and that his memory of his weakness and clumsiness had been blotted out at the same time. He was handsome and strong, but somehow that wasn’t enough for him. He also felt the need to be tough and inured to hardship like Atreyu. But how was he to come by that quality in this luminous garden, where all manner of fruit was to be had for the picking?

The first pearly streaks of dawn appeared over the eastern horizon. And with the rising of the light the phosphorescence of the night plants paled.

“High time!” said Bastian aloud. “I thought the day would never come.”

He sat down on the floor of the blossom and wondered what he should do. Climb down again and keep going? Of course, since he was lord of Perilin, no one could stop him from wandering around in it for days, if not for months or years. This jungle was so enormous he would never find his way out of it. But beautiful as he found the night plants, he didn’t think this prospect would suit him in the long run. Exploring a desert—that would be something else again. The biggest desert in Fantastica. Yes, that would be something to be proud of.

In that same moment, a violent tremor shook the giant tree. The trunk bent, and a crackling, groaning sound could be heard. Bastian had to hold tight to keep from rolling out of his blossom, the stem of which tilted more and more, until at last it lay flat.

The sun, which had risen in the meantime, disclosed a vision of devastation. Hardly anything was left of all the enormous night plants. More quickly than they had sprung up they crumbled under the glaring sunlight into dust and fine, colored sand. Gigantic tree trunks collapsed as sand castles do when they dry out. Bastian’s tree seemed to be the last still standing. But when he tried to steady himself by grasping at the petals of his flower, they crumbled in his hands and blew away like a cloud of dust. Now that there was nothing to obstruct the view, he saw how terrifyingly high up he was. He knew he would have to climb down as fast as possible, for the tree was likely to collapse at any moment.

Cautiously, he climbed out of the blossom and straddled the stem, which was now bent like a fishing pole. No sooner had he left the blossom than it broke off behind him and crumbled into dust in falling.

Ever so gingerly Bastian proceeded downward. Many a man would have panicked on seeing the ground so very far below, but Bastian was free from dizziness and his nerves were steel. Knowing that any abrupt movement might reduce the whole tree to dust, he crept along the bough and finally reached the place where the trunk became vertical. Hugging it, he let himself slide, inch by inch. Several times, great clouds of colored dust fell on him from above. There were no branches left, and what towering stumps remained crumbled when Bastian tried to use them for support. As he continued downward, the trunk became too big for him to hold. And he was still far above the ground. He stopped to think; How was he ever going to get down?

But then another tremor passed through the giant stump and relieved him of the need for further thought. What was left of the tree disintegrated and settled into a great mound of sand; Bastian rolled down the side of it in a wild whirl, turning a number of somersaults on the way, and finally came to rest at the bottom. He came close to being buried under an avalanche of colored dust, but he fought his way clear, spat the sand out of his mouth, and shook it out of his ears and clothes.

Wherever he looked, the sand was moving in slow streams and eddies. It collected into hills and dunes of every shape and size, each with a color of its own. Light-blue sand gathered to form a light-blue hill, and the same with green and violet and so on. Perilin, the Night Forest, was gone and a desert was taking its place; and what a desert!

Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that recurred in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermilion, lapis lazuli. And so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hills, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand.

“This,” said Bastian aloud, “is Goab, the Desert of Colors.”

The sun rose higher and higher and the heat became murderous. The air over the colored sand dunes shimmered, and Bastian realized that he was in a tight spot. He could not stay in this desert, that was certain. If he didn’t get out of it soon, he would die of hunger and thirst.

He took hold of the Childlike Empress’s emblem in the hope that it would guide him. And then staunchly he started on his way.

He climbed dune after dune; hour after hour he plodded on, never seeing anything but hill after hill. Only the colors kept changing. His fabulous strength was no longer of any use to him, for desert distances cannot be vanquished with strength. The air was a searing blast from hell. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth and his face streamed with sweat.

The sun was a whorl of fire in the middle of the sky. It had been in the same place for a long time and didn’t seem to move. That day in the desert was as long as the night in Perilin.

Bastian’s eyes burned and his tongue felt like a piece of leather. But he didn’t give up. His body had dried out, and the blood in his veins was so thick it could hardly flow. But on he went, slowly, with even steps, neither hurrying nor stopping to rest, as if he had had years of experience at crossing deserts on foot. He ignored the torments of thirst. His will had become as hard as steel, neither fatigue nor hardship could bend it.

He recalled how easily he had been discouraged in the past. He had begun all sorts of projects and given up at the first sign of difficulty. He had always been afraid of not getting enough to eat, or of falling ill, or having to endure pain. All that was far behind him.

No one before him had dared to cross Goab, the Desert of Colors, on foot, nor would anyone undertake to do so in the future. And most likely no one would ever hear of his exploit.

This last thought saddened Bastian. Goab seemed to be so inconceivably large he felt sure he would never come to the end of it. Despite his phenomenal endurance he was bound to perish sooner or later. That didn’t frighten him. He would die with calm dignity like the hunters in Atreyu’s country. But since no one ever ventured into this desert, the news of his death would never be divulged. Either in Fantastica or at home. He would simply be reported missing, and no one would ever know he had been in Fantastica or in the desert of Goab. All Fantastica, he said to himself, was contained in the book that the Old Man of Wandering Mountain had written. This book was the Neverending Story, which he himself had read in the attic. Maybe his present adventures and sufferings were in the book even now. And maybe someone else would read the book someday—maybe someone was reading it at that very moment. In that case, it must be possible to give that someone a sign.

The sand hill where Bastian was standing just then was ultramarine blue. And separated from it by a narrow cleft there was a fiery-red dune. Bastian crossed over to it, gathered up sand in both hands and carried it to the blue hill. Then he strewed a long line of red sand on the hillside. He went back, brought more red sand, and repeated the operation. Soon he had fashioned three enormous red letters against the blue ground:

B   B   B

He viewed his work with satisfaction. No reader of the Neverending Story could fail to see his message. So whatever happened to him now, someone would know where he had been.

He sat down to rest on the red hilltop. The three letters glittered bright in the desert sun.

Another piece of his memory of the old Bastian had been wiped out. He forgot that he had once been a namby-pamby, something of a crybaby, in fact. And he was ever so proud of his toughness. But already a new wish was taking form.

“It’s true that I fear nothing,” he said aloud, “but what I still lack is true courage. Being able to endure hardships is a great thing. But courage and daring are something else again. I wish I could run into a real adventure, something calling for great courage. How grand it would be to meet some dangerous creature—maybe not as hideous as Ygramul, but much more dangerous. A beautiful, but very, very dangerous creature. The most dangerous creature in all Fantastica. I’d step right up to it and . . .”

Bastian said no more, for in that same moment he heard a roaring and rumbling so deep that the ground trembled beneath his feet.

Bastian turned around. Far in the distance he saw something that looked like a ball of fire. Moving with incredible speed, it described a wide arc around the spot where Bastian was sitting, then came straight toward him. In the shimmering desert air, which made the outline of things waver like flames, the creature looked like a dancing fire-demon.

Bastian was stricken with terror. Before he knew it, he had run down into the cleft between the red dune and the blue dune. But no sooner had he got there than he felt ashamed and overcame his fear.

He took hold of AURYN and felt all the courage he had wished for streaming into his heart.

Then again he heard the deep roar that made the ground tremble, but this time it was near him. He looked up.

A huge lion was standing on the fiery-red dune. The sun was directly behind him, and made his great mane look like a wreath of fire. This lion was not a tawny color like other lions, but as fiery red as the dune on which he was standing.

The beast did not seem to have noticed the boy, so much smaller than himself, who was standing in the cleft between the two dunes, but seemed to be looking at the red letters on the opposite hill. The great rumbling voice said: “Who did this?”

“I did,” said Bastian.

“What is it?”

“It’s my initials,” said Bastian. “My name is Bastian Balthazar Bux.”

Then for the first time the lion turned toward Bastian, who for a moment expected to be burned to a crisp by the flames that seemed to surround the lion. But his fear soon passed and he returned the lion’s gaze.

“I,” said the huge beast, “am Grograman, Lord of the Desert of Colors. I am also known as the Many-Colored Death.”

Bastian felt the deadly power that flowed from the lion’s eyes. But he did not avert his own.

When they had measured their strength for some time, the lion looked down. With slow, majestic movements he descended from the dune. When he stepped onto the ultramarine sand, he too changed color, his coat and mane became blue. For a moment the huge beast stood facing Bastian, who had to look up at him as a mouse might look up at a cat. Then suddenly Grograman lay down and touched his head to the ground.

“Master,” he said. “I am your servant, I await your commands.”

“I’d like to get out of this desert,” said Bastian. “Can you manage that?”

Grograman shook his mane.

“No, master, that I cannot do.”

“Why not?”

“Because I carry the desert with me.”

Not knowing what to make of this, Bastian asked: “Isn’t there somebody who can get me out of here?”

“How could that be, master?” said Grograman. “Where I am no other living creature can exist. My presence alone would suffice to reduce everybody—even the most powerful of creatures—into ashes for thousands of miles around. That’s why I’m called the Many-Colored Death and Lord of the Desert of Colors.”

“That’s not so,” said Bastian. “Everybody doesn’t get burned up in your desert. Look at me.”

“Because you are bearing the Gem, master. AURYN protects you—even from me, the deadliest creature in Fantastica.”

“You mean that if I didn’t have the Gem, I’d be reduced to ashes?”

“That’s how it is, master. That’s what would happen, though personally I’d regret it. Because you’re the first and only being who has ever spoken to me.”

Bastian touched the amulet. “Thank you, Moon Child,” he said under his breath.