优先遵循ANK汉化
毒药之颂，第二册
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2022-08-04更新
最新编辑:Lu_23333
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更新日期：2022-08-04
最新编辑：Lu_23333
毒药之颂，第二册
毒药之颂，第二册
泰伊完全没有罪恶感，这吓坏他了。穿过树林，越过干枯的河床，快步从峡谷回家的漫长路上，他愉快地和蓓娜拉聊天，脑袋清楚明白自己刚刚杀了人。一旦他的心思飘离对话，而他回想起瓦士特短促生命的最后时刻，那首歌就会回荡耳边。泰伊不能想起男孩的死，但他知道自己该负全责。
“你们脏死了！”乌黎雅姑姑一看到两个孩子走出树林，回到杉笛尔家的土地上时惊叫。“你们去哪里撒野了？”
“瓦士特没有跟你说吗？”泰伊问道。
剧场会自己上演，泰伊早就知道，那首歌中的每个舞者会按着舞码踩出舞步。乌黎雅姑姑说她没见到瓦士特。此时还不知道害怕的蓓娜拉扯了一个无关紧要的小谎，说他们三个人没有跑很远，瓦士特一定是迷路了。当夜晚降临，缓缓却持续酝酿的恐慌开始放大，瓦士特还是没有回家。蓓娜拉和泰伊泪眼朦胧地（他好惊讶，无所感地哭泣居然这么容易）坦承他们究竟去了什么地方，并带着崔斐斯叔叔和一群仆人往废物堆和峡谷而去。一伙人不眠不休地搜索大片树林，直到天蒙蒙亮。然后，饮泣。最后，是轻微的处罚——只是生气的怒吼，因为蓓娜拉和泰伊正为失去了堂弟而哀恸。
因为他们一脸震惊，大家都觉得两个孩子已经够内疚了。他们在清晨时被送上床，而找人的搜索行动继续。
泰伊的保母艾蒂芭进来房间时，他已经快睡着了。那股坚定的爱和奉献依然在她眼中闪耀，而泰伊就在她握着手的陪伴下，感恩地沉入梦乡和恶梦之中。那首歌微乎极微飘入他的意识，他再次看到那个城堡里的房间。女孩和她的婴儿。藏身屋梁的鸟儿。将熄的火焰。突发的暴力场面。难以呼吸，泰伊睁开双眼。
艾蒂芭溜出门外，轻轻哼着那首歌，手中拿着原本放在他背包里的水晶球。他迟疑了片刻，差点喊叫出声。她怎会知道那首歌？她是否知道他昨天为了那颗球而动手杀人？
出于他无法说明的原因，他知道她其实是帮手，她对所有事情了如指掌，她深爱他，而且只想保护他。
一天、一星期、一个月过去，这些日子全都一样。大家都不多话，若有人发言，也只是提出可以寻找男孩的新搜寻地点。所有地方都找过了。泰伊心生好奇，怎么没人到峡谷去看看呢？不过他也知道要下去那里实在太过困难。
少了瓦士特的副作用之一，是家教基纳·嘉甫希的上课内容得以更严肃，甚至带点学术性质。以前，小男孩的活泼好动和注意力不足，总是让课程缩短，可是敏感的蓓娜拉和安静的泰伊则是完美的学生。他们竟然能对讲述晨风省各家族家徽的枯燥历史课，展现高度的专注力，对此他尤其印象深刻。
“拉鲁家族的徽饰是座天平”他嗤之以鼻。“他们自视为伟大的协调者，仿佛那很光荣似的。数百年以前，他们只是追随锐司丹的部落群众，他——”
“基纳，我有问题”蓓娜拉开口。“有昆虫图案的是什么家族的徽饰呢？”
“你不知道瑞多然家族？”老师问道，拿起一面盾牌。“我知道你们在葛尼岛上过着备受保护的生活，不过你们也够大了，应该要知道——”
“不是那一个，基纳”泰伊回应。“我想她说的是另一个有昆虫的徽饰”
“我知道了”基纳·嘉甫希点着头，眉头紧皱。“也是，你们太小，不可能见过第六家族——达格斯家族的徽饰。在红山之役中，我们的敌人连同应受诅咒的异类锻莫，感谢上主、神母和巫师，如今已统统被消灭。数千年来，那个家族一直是我们土地上的诅咒，当他们的余孽终于被一举歼灭，就连大地本身都松一口气，呼出大团的火焰与灰烬，将白天化作黑夜，超过一年”
蓓娜拉和泰伊知道他们不能说话，不过他们交换了会意的眼神，任凭老师滔滔不绝地讲述锻莫人和达格斯家族的邪恶。课程一结束，他们便悄悄走出杉笛尔之屋，直到确认周围没有闲杂人等。
午后的阳光把草地周围长矛般的树木阴影拉得老长。他们可以听到远方的工人开始为秋潮收割做准备，用粗鲁又熟悉的腔调彼此嚷嚷。
“那铁定就是你在垃圾堆找到的盾牌上面的徽章”蓓娜拉终于说道。“那里的所有东西想必是达格斯家族的遗迹”
泰伊点点头。他的心思飘到了那颗奇怪的水晶球。他感觉到无声音乐的轻微震动抚过他的身体，知道他找到了那首歌的新节奏。
“为什么我们的族人要烧毁并丢弃所有东西呢？”他若有所思地问道。“你觉得达格斯家族真的那么邪恶，所有跟他们有关的东西全都受到诅咒吗？”
蓓娜拉笑了出来。这一天的高潮，便是这些围绕着诅咒和邪恶第六家族的闲聊，不过这些都只是想象，是为生活增添冒险乐趣的调味剂，没什么需要担心。两个孩子走回城堡，又是冗长无趣的寂静晚餐。待夜幕低垂，蓓娜拉看着她从垃圾堆捡来的宝贝。在月光照耀下，小罐子、镶有橘色宝石的饰环、光泽黯淡的金银色不知名器物残片，看起来全都显得阴沉不祥。
嫌恶感很快取代了原本的喜爱之情。它们有股奇怪的能量，死亡和腐败的气息挥之不去。蓓娜拉奔到窗边，开始呕吐。
她望着下方黑暗空旷的草地，看到下面有个人点亮了排列成形的蜡烛，那是只巨大的昆虫，是达格斯家族的象征。那个人看向她的方位，她赶紧往后躲，但她看到了那个泛着油光的面孔。是艾蒂芭，泰伊的保母。
隔天清晨，蓓娜拉早早便背着装满她的宝物的大袋子，离开城堡的领地。她带着这些东西来到废弃场，把它们留在那里，然后回去跟叔叔崔斐斯说她前一晚的所见，不过却省略了最初她会跑到窗边呕吐的原因。
艾蒂芭直接被驱离葛尼岛。尽管她哭着恳求，希望能和泰伊道别，但所有人都认为那样太过危险。当泰伊问起她时，他们说她回去内陆和家人团聚了。他已经长大，不再需要保母了。
蓓娜拉从来没有跟他说她看到了什么。她太害怕了。
The Poison Song, Book II
The Poison Song, Book II
Tay felt no guilt, which frightened him. All through the long, fast walk away from the gorge, through the woods, across the dry creek bed, he chatted merrily with Baynarah, fully aware that he had just committed murder. Whenever his mind strayed from the conversation, and he thought back on the last moments of Vaster's short life, the Song would soar. He could not think of the boy's death, but Tay knew he was responsible.
"You're a mess!" cried Aunt Ulliah the moment she saw the two children emerging from the woods onto the grounds of Sandil House. "Where have you been?"
"Didn't Vaster already tell you?" asked Tay.
The scene played itself out as Tay knew it would, every dancer in the Song performing their steps as choreographed. Aunt Ulliah saying that she had not seen Vaster. Baynarah, not yet frightened, making up an innocent lie about the threesome not having strayed far, saying he must have gotten lost. A slow but steady rhythm of panic intensifying as night began to fall, and Vaster had not yet returned. Baynarah and Tay tearfully (he was surprised how easy it was for him to cry without feeling) admitting where they had been, and leading Uncle Triffith and a crowd of servants to the junk pile and gorge. The tireless search through the woods as night turned to dawn. The weeping. The light punishment, merely cries of anger, that Baynarah and Tay suffered for losing their young cousin.
It was thought, from their stricken expressions, that the children felt guilty enough. They were sent to bed at dawn while the hunt through the woods continued.
Tay was drifting to sleep when his nursemaid Edebah came into his room. The look of unwavering love and devotion had not left her eyes, and he sank gratefully into his dreams and nightmares with her holding his hand. The Song wafted almost imperceptibly through his consciousness as he again had the vision of the room in the castle. The girl and her baby. The bird in the rafters. The dying fire. The sudden explosion of violence. Breathless, Tay opened his eyes.
Edebah was stealing out the door, softly humming the Song to herself. In her hand was the crystal globe from his satchel. For a moment, he hesitated, about to cry out. How did she know the Song? Was she aware that he had murdered another boy to get the globe?
Somehow he knew that she was helping him, that she knew all and loved him and sought only to protect him.
The next day, and the next week, and the next month were all the same. No one spoke very much, and when they did it was to suggest new places to look for the missing boy. Everywhere had been searched thoroughly. Tay was curious why they never looked in the gorge, but he understood how inaccessible it was.
A side-effect of Vaster's absence was that the tutorial sessions with Kena Gafrisi took on a more serious, even academic quality. The younger boy's high spirits and meager attentiveness had always cut the lessons short, but sensible Baynarah and quiet Tay were ideal pupils. He was particularly impressed by how focused they became during a rather dry history lecture about the heraldic symbols of Houses of Morrowind.
"The crest of the Hlaalu features a scale," he sniffed disdainfully. "They see themselves as the great compromisers, as if that were something honorable. Many hundreds of years ago, they were the tribesmen following Resdayn who chose--"
"Pardon me, Kena," asked Baynarah. "But what is the crest with the insect on it?"
"You don't know House Redoran?" asked the tutor, lifting up one of the shields. "I know you have a sheltered life on Gorne, but you're surely old enough to recognize--"
"Not that one, Kena," replied Tay. "I think she means the other crest with an insect."
"I see," nodded Kena Gafrisi, brow furrowed. "Yes, you would be too young to have ever seen the crest of the Sixth House, the House of Dagoth. Our enemies together with the accursed heretical Dwemer in the War of the Red Mountain, now totally destroyed, thanks be to Lord, Mother, and Wizard. That House was a curse on our land for millennia, and when at last their pestilence was snuffed out, the very earth itself breathed a cloud of fire and ash in relief, bringing night to day for over a year's time."
Baynarah and Tay knew they could not speak, but they exchanged knowing glances at one another as the tutor enlarged on the theme of the great wickedness of the Dwemer and the House Dagoth. As soon as the lesson ended, they walked silently out of Sandil House until they were far from all ears and eyes.
The afternoon sun stretched out the shadows of the spear-like trees surrounding the meadow. Off in the distance, they could hear the sounds of the workers beginning their preparations for the autumntide harvest, yelling to one another unintelligibly in coarse and familiar accents.
"That was definitely the symbol on that shield you found at the garbage heap," Baynarah said at last. "Everything there must be a remnant of the House Dagoth."
Tay nodded. His mind was on the strange crystal globe. He felt a light vibration of soundless music touch his body, and knew he was discovering a new cadence of the Song.
"Why would our people have burned and discarded all that?" he asked thoughtfully. "Do you think the House Dagoth was so evil that everything associated with them could have been cursed?"
Baynarah laughed. At the height of day, all talk of curses and the evil Sixth House were pure supposition: something to add romance to one's life, but nothing to worry about. The two children walked back to the castle for yet another in a series of cold, quiet dinners. As the night fell, Baynarah looked through the treasures she had picked up in the junk heap. By the light of the moons, the small jars, the torc with orange gemstones, the bits of tarnished silver and gold of no obvious purpose, all took on a sinister aspect.
Revulsion overtook her feeling of admiration instantly. There was a strange energy to them, a tincture of death and corruption that was undeniable. Baynarah ran to the window and vomited.
Looking out to the dark open lawn below, she saw a figure below lighting an arrangement of candles in the shape of a large insect, the symbol of the House Dagoth. When it looked in her direction, she pulled back, but she saw the face illuminated by the tallows. It was Edebah, Tay's nursemaid.
The next morning, Baynarah left the castle grounds early, bearing a large sack filled with her treasures. She carried them to the dumping ground and left them there. Then she returned, and told her Uncle Triffith what she had seen the night before, leaving out only what had made her sick in the first place.
Edebah was banished from the isle of Gorne without discussion. She wept, begging to be allowed to say goodbye to Tay, but all believed that would be too dangerous. When Tay asked what had become of her, he was told she had to return to her family on the mainland. He had grown too old for a nursemaid.
Baynarah never told him what she knew. For she was afraid.
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