NES

(excerpt)

The gold and silver amulet on the cover glistened as she picked the book up. It resembled the thing given her by Jimycahn somewhere in the recess of her memory. "This is always good to fall back on." The Never Ending Story was her favorite childhood story and that her father's. It had balanced the distance of sunset to midnight for many outside of her own family and it was never the same story twice. At every age and to every mind, it was a different tale. Mr. Koreander had warned her father of reading the story as a young boy just as she had been warned by her own grandfather, Bernie, and her father Bastian. There were always the warnings and there was always the best adventure tucked deep inside the book. "This is just what I need." She took it over to the opposite side of her bed, away from the door but just before the window to the side yard. She took the book of her youth and the treat from the secret place and lay down on the alpaca rug to read.

Tyrean opened the heavy leather cover of the Never Ending Story. The emblem on the front sparkled even in the fading daylight that streamed through her window. The faint autumn breeze that flowed underneath the slightly raised window kissed the cheek not supported by an upturned palm as gently as the character on the first page kissed the bleach-faced woman. "I have come across the distance, traveled the Sands of Time to bring you home away from this land and back to the familiar. Come with me, Mon Cherie." Her mind fixed a French accent to the words spoken by the black and white characters. Tyrean read on to find that they managed to cross over a slight rise in the sand to find a great body of water resting far below the sandy ridge on which they stood. Suddenly, something behind them slipped away pulling the sands and desert flora behind it. The gallant Valentino dashed over to the fallen place, "What is it!" Anne, the pale woman... his Mon Cherie, closed his thought, "...it was nothing." They stood in profile, silhouetted against the desert sun in an embrace, staring down at the bottom of the ridge. Tyrean heard her own voice calling, unheard, "Oh! I am here, help me!" There was no one to answer, nothing above her but sand blowing to the quiet desert wind that had been far below. She stood up to get her bearing and readied for the long climb back uphill but before she could take a second of many steps, a voice sounded from across the waters, "Tyreeeeaaahhhhnnn!" Tyrean stopped, "Oh no!" It called out again, "Tyreeeeaaahhhnnn! Fantasia needs you. We need you here!" It was followed by a sob then muffled screams. "There's really something wrong out here... there in Fantasia!" Tyrean looked out across the waters for the mystical tower seeing nothing. The hand supporting her cheek grew numb.

As she lifted herself to shift her weight, the pages blew over and over so that several pages rested between her starting place and the open page before her. "Darn!" she spoke out loud; loudly enough to be heard by anyone standing near her. "Is that the way to greet someone?" a voice from within the rock of limestone called to her, "...and there you, where is your school bag?" Tyrean looked around seeing nothing, then slowly, a head scarfed craggy-faced individual edged up out of the rock. Tyrean stepped back darting her eyes to and from for a safe place just in case she'd

need to flee. As she searched the mountain landscape before her, a sort of sheep bounded from behind the scarfed image. "Arien! Get back in line!" the scarfed one commanded the animal to fall in place. When she did, it jumped back to the line of now several others that were stepping out to the rock behind the craggy little person. "If I could get those imps to mind as well..." the craggy one mumbled under her breath, "Where IS YOUR BAG!?" It looked at her again. Tyrean smiled back at her, "I am not an imp!" It stood to look at her better, more closely. This one was too short for the usual... standard imp. There was no healthy limey flesh tone to it and it wasn't losing the dead flakes like all the others. Limestone sediment flakes and sends its dust over distances on the wind; flakes and dust from effects of withstanding the elements of time. Here, where Tyrean found herself, was the base of the limestone mountain in Fantasia. The pages had turned taking her out of the sanded ridge where Valentino and Mon Cherie stood in their romantic pose in the blowing sands... the last film clip shown her for her film critique assignment. Here in the chapters dictated by Fantasia in the leatherbound book, the chapters that increase or decrease with the mind's permission... within the mind's limits, had moved back to where she'd first met the imps and their elders. She had found the Peer and now the Sheps that were following her. She repeated, "I am not an imp." The character before her spoke again, "No... no, you are a little different... what are you?" Natural loss of the dead flake in dusty sheets as one moved was the sign of a healthy young imp. Limestone flakes often and easily. Tyrean answered, "I'm pretty much lost," without much thought. She looked back and forth up the wall of the mountain and out toward the clearings she had only left moments ago. "I'm going to the Ivory Tower by way of Hope... Which way is that?" Tyrean looked lost. Hope was a new means in this world. It was new to Tyrean. The craggy one responded with an all-knowing tone now, "You say you want to get past Hope? The craggy one did not change her expression, but muttered under her breath, "...that's the plan of all the imps out here!" The craggy one... the Peer, looked at Tyrean watching her expressions and gestures. The body did not say what she intended to do beyond Hope, and the expressions were either very well-practiced or intent at nothing. The large stone that was Peer's head tipped to the side, "Why do you wish to get past Hope?" she paused for a moment, then followed with, "...what's your name?" Tyrean smiled more widely then, chiding back to her, "I'm Tyrean." Peer continued, "Why do you want to get past Hope... chile?" Tyrean drew in a deep breath to explain again, "I need to get to the other side. The sky was falling on the Ivory Tower and the rain whispers have done all they can. I have to get to the other side of Hope so I can get back to the Ivory Tower. The Ivory Princess is waiting below the tower for my return. I left her with the Purples." Peer's mouth dropped open to reveal milk rock teeth, some missing, others badly eroded. "I might have been wrong about you... you say you're not an imp?" She did not give Tyrean time to answer, but went on talking; "...the others talk this way all the time. Those imps, they all get bad as anything. You can't trust a word. You just can not trust a WORD they say!" Tyrean's face grew more serious now, the smile left a straight line where her mouth had just flashed the white of her teeth. The Peer watched her, continuing, "How will you get back to your place of beginning without going across the water's body? The food will do you no good. Your head is festered with power of knowledge... but how do you cross the water?" She waited for the response from the girl standing before her. When she saw none coming, she answered her own question. "In separation, I leave you with this." The short shepherd... the peer, too tall for the persons and too short for the limestone people of the imp clan, sat an uddered beast before her. Among the rock people of the Limestone Mountain Peer was the tender. She tended to the smaller rock persons... the imps. She tended to the needs of the larger imp persons... the imp peers... or parents; and she tended to the animals... sheps, kows and others things. "What am I going to do with that?" Tyrean raised one eyebrow. Peer kept talking, "You are full in your belly?... then use this one on the water. It "Kow"...You don't eat it, it can help you, you know; get beyond the impassable with not a boat. Use this alone. Use Kow. Push him in and watch." The Peer stepped a short step away from her and blended into the hills of what had been Limestone Mountains, leaving the animal with Tyrean. Tyrean looked at the beast left in front of her, shaking her head, "Weight... great! More weight. Now I have a pet too." Frustration was beginning to mount but there was nothing to do but go on. "come on cow..." she said in her angst. She started back with Kow close behind her.

A great sucking noise threw her to the ground again, much like the blow that had brought Atrayo to her side. Moments later she awakened to see Kow standing over her. As she pulled herself together, she gazed out across the distance then up again toward the crevice in Limestone Mountain. The images were all falling away from their places of stability. The falling of the clouds was because of the transition. The change from gas to liquid... the crumbling of the limestone was from transition.

Tyrean looked up and along the mountain wall then out along its length. A good distance past the end of her vision's length she could see what looked like a horse and rider. They were moving at a fast pace in the opposite direction from where Tyrean was heading.