Read The Neverending Story for Free Online Page B

cleft in the door curtain he saw flickering firelight.
    “Holy horseshoes!” he muttered, and tried to sit up. “How long have I been lying here?”
    A head looked in through the door opening and pulled back again. Someone said:
    “Yes, he seems to be awake.”
    Then the curtain was drawn aside and a boy of about ten stepped in. His long trousers and shoes were of soft buffalo leather. His body was bare from the waist up, but a long purple-red cloak, evidently woven from buffalo hair, hung from his shoulders. His long blue-black hair was gathered together and held back by leather thongs. A few simple white designs were painted on the olive-green skin of his cheeks and forehead. His dark eyes flashed angrily at the intruder; otherwise his features betrayed no emotion of any kind.
    “What do you want of me, stranger?” he asked. “Why have you come to my tent? And why have you robbed me of my hunt? If I had killed the big buffalo today—and my arrow was already fitted to my bowstring—I’d have been a hunter tomorrow. Now I’ll have to wait a whole year. Why?”
    The old centaur stared at him in consternation. “Am I to take it,” he asked, “that you are Atreyu?”
    “That’s right, stranger.”
    “Isn’t there someone else of the same name? A grown man, an experienced hunter?”
    “No. I and no one else am Atreyu.”
    Sinking back on his bed of furs, old Cairon gasped: “A child! A little boy! Really, the decisions of the Childlike Empress are hard to fathom.”
    Atreyu waited in impassive silence.
    “Forgive me, Atreyu,” said Cairon, controlling his agitation with the greatest difficulty. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but the surprise has been just too great. Frankly, I’m horrified. I don’t know what to think. I can’t help wondering: Did the Childlike Empress really know what she was doing when she chose a youngster like you? It’s sheer madness! And if she did it intentionally, then . . . then . . .”
    With a violent shake of his head, he blurted out: “No! No! If I had known whom she was sending me to, I’d have refused to entrust you with the mission. I’d have refused!”
    “What mission?” Atreyu asked.
    “It’s monstrous!” cried Cairon indignantly. “It’s doubtful whether even the greatest, most experienced of heroes could carry out this mission . . . and you! . . . She’s sending you into the unfathomable to look for the unknown . . . No one can help you, no one can advise you, no one can foresee what will befall you. And yet you must decide at once, immediately, whether or not you accept the mission. There’s not a moment to be lost. For ten days and nights I have galloped almost without rest to reach you. But now—I almost wish I hadn’t got here. I’m very old, I’m at the end of my strength. Give me a drink of water, please.”
    Atreyu brought a pitcher of fresh spring water. The centaur drank deeply, then he wiped his beard and said somewhat more calmly: “Thank you. That was good. I feel better already. Listen to me, Atreyu. You don’t have to accept this mission. The Childlike Empress leaves it entirely up to you. She never gives orders. I’ll tell her how it is and she’ll find someone else. She can’t have known you were a little boy. She must have got you mixed up with someone else. That’s the only possible explanation.”
    “What is this mission?” Atreyu asked.
    “To find a cure for the Childlike Empress,” the centaur answered, “and save Fantastica.”
    “Is she sick?” Atreyu asked in amazement.
    Cairon told him how it was with the Childlike Empress and what the messengers had reported from all parts of Fantastica. Atreyu asked many questions and the centaur answered them to the best of his ability. They talked far into the night. And the more Atreyu learned of the menace facing Fantastica, the more his face, which at first had been so impassive, expressed unveiled horror.
    “To think,” he murmured finally