Monthly Archives: July 2012
The Childlike Empress picked up AURYN
Little by little the darkness cleared from Atreyu's face. After a while he asked: "How can you know all that? The cry by the Deep Chasm and the image in the magic mirror? Did you arrange it all in advance?" The Childlike Empress picked up AURYN, and said, while putting the chain around her neck: "Didn't you wear the Gem the whole time? Didn't you know that through it I was always with you?" "Not always," said Atreyu. "I lost it." "Yes. Then you were really alone. Tell me what happened to you then." Atreyu told her the story. "Now I know why you turned gray," said the Childlike Empress. "You were too close to the Nothing." "Gmork, the werewolf, told me," said Atreyu, "that when a Fantastican is swallowed up by the Nothing, he becomes a lie. Is that true?" "Yes, it is true," said the Childlike Empress, and her golden eyes darkened. "All lies were once creatures of Fantastica. They are made of the same stuff -- but they have lost their true nature and become unrecognizable. But, as you might expect from a half-and-half creature like Gmork, he told you only half the truth. There are two ways of crossing the dividing line between Fantastica and the human world, a right one and a wrong one. When Fantasticans are cruelly dragged across it, that's the wrong way. When humans, children of man, come to our world of their own free will, that's the right way. Every human who has been here has learned something that could be learned only here, and returned to his own world a changed person. Because he had seen you creatures in your true form, he was able to see his own world and his fellow humans with new eyes. Where he had seen only dull, everyday reality, he now discovered wonders and mysteries. That is why humans were glad to come to Fantastica. And the more these visits enriched our world, the fewer lies there were in theirs, the better it became. Just as our two worlds can injure each other, they can also make each other whole again." For a time both were silent. Then she went on: "Humans are our hope. One of them must come and give me a new name. And he will come." Atreyu made no answer.
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"They've all fled!" he thought. "They've left the Childlike Empress alone. Or she's already. . ." "Atreyu," Falkor whispered. "You must give the Gem back to her." Falkor removed the golden chain from his neck. It fell to the ground. Atreyu jumped down off Falkor's back -- and fell. He had forgotten his wound. He reached for the Glory and put the chain around his neck. Then, leaning on the dragon, he rose painfully to his feet. "Falkor," he said. "Where must I go?" But the luckdragon made no answer. He lay as though dead. The street ended in front of an enormous, intricately carved gate which led through a high white wall. The gate was open. Atreyu hobbled through it and came to a broad, gleaming-white stairway that seemed to end in the sky. He began to climb. Now and then he stopped to rest. Drops of his blood left a trail behind him. At length the stairway ended. Ahead of him lay a long gallery. He staggered ahead, clinging to the balustrade for support. Next he came to a courtyard that seemed to be full of waterfalls and fountains, but by then he couldn't be sure of what he was seeing. He struggled forward as in a dream. He came to a second, smaller gate; then there was a long, narrow stairway, which took him to a garden where everything -- trees, flowers, and animals -- was carved from ivory.
Again they sat silent
"May I ask you another question?" said Atreyu. "Of course," she answered with a smile. "Why do you need a new name to get well?" "Only the right name gives beings and things their reality," she said. "A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do." "Maybe the savior doesn't yet know the right name to give you." "Oh yes he does," she assured him. Again they sat silent. "I know it all right," said Bastian. "I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her. But I don't know what I have to do." Atreyu looked up. "Maybe he wants to come and just doesn't know how to go about it." "All he has to do," said the Childlike Empress, "is to call me by my new name, which he alone knows. Nothing more." Bastian's heart pounded. Should he try? What if he didn't succeed? What if he was wrong? What if they weren't talking about him but about some entirely different savior? How could he be sure they really meant him? "Could it be," said Atreyu after a while, "that he doesn't know it's him and not somebody else we're talking about?"