The Neverending Story (14 page)

“I hope it isn’t going too far,

But could you tell me who you are?”

This time the voice answered at once:

“I hear you now, your words are clear,

I understand as well as hear.”

And then, coming from a different direction, it sang:

“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.”

Atreyu noticed that the voice rose and fell, but was never wholly silent. Even when it sang no words or when he was speaking, a sound hovered in the air.

For a time it seemed to stand still; then it moved slowly away from him. He ran after it and asked:

“Oh, Uyulala, tell me where you’re hid.

I cannot see you and so wish I did.”

Passing him by, the voice breathed into his ear:

“Never has anyone seen me,

Never do I appear.

You will never see me,

And yet I am here.”

“Then you’re invisible?” he asked. But when no answer came, he remembered that he had to speak in rhyme, and asked:

“Have you no body, is that what you mean?

Or is it only that you can’t be seen?”

He heard a soft, bell-like sound, which might have been a laugh or a sob. And the voice sang:

“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.”

In amazement, Atreyu followed the sound this way and that way through the forest of columns. It took him some time to get a new question ready:

“Do I understand you right?

Your body is this melody?

But what if you should cease to sing?

Would you cease to be?”

The answer came to him from very near:

“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.”

Now it seemed certain that the voice was sobbing, and Atreyu, who could not understand why, hastened to ask:

“Why are you so sad? Why are you crying?

You sound so young. Why speak of dying?”

And the voice came back like an echo:

“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?”

The voice died away among the columns, and Atreyu turned in all directions, trying to pick it up again. For a little while he heard nothing, then, starting in the distance, the voice came quickly closer. It sounded almost impatient:

“Uyulala is answer. Answers on questions feed.

So ask me what you’ve come to ask,

For questions are her need.”

Atreyu cried out:

“Then help me, Uyulala, tell me why

You sing a plaint as if you soon must die.”

And the voice sang:

“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.”

Atreyu pleaded:

“Oh, tell me, Uyulala, oh, tell me who can give

The Childlike Empress the name,

which alone will let her live.”

The voice replied:

“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.”

For a time he heard only a plaintive sound without words. Then suddenly the voice came from right next to him, as though someone were whispering into his ear:

“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,