《最後一戰》第65期:黑夜籠罩納尼亞(3)

The Dragons and Giant Lizards now had Narnia to themselves. They went to and fro tearing up the trees by the roots and crunching them up as if they were sticks of rhubarb. Minute by minute the forests disappeared. The whole country became bare and you could see all sorts of things about its shape - all the little humps and hollows which you had never noticed before. The grass died. Soon Tirian found that he was looking at a world of bare rock and earth. You could hardly believe that anything had ever lived there. The monsters themselves grew old and lay down and died. Their flesh shrivelled up and the bones appeared: soon they were only huge skeletons that lay here and there on the dead rock, looking as if they had died thousands of years ago. For a long time everything was still.

At last something white - a long, level line of whiteness that gleamed in the light of the standing stars - came moving towards them from the Eastern end of the world.

A widespread noise broke the silence: first a murmur then a rumble, then a roar. And now they could see what it was that was coming, and how fast it came. It was a foaming wall of water. The sea was rising. In that tree-less world you could see it very well. You could see all the rivers getting wider and the lakes getting larger, and separate lakes joining into one, and valleys turning into new lakes, and hills turning into islands, and then those islands vanishing. And the high moors to their left and the higher mountains to their right crumbled and slipped down with a roar and a splash into the mounting water; and the water came swirling up to the very threshold of the Doorway (but never passed it) so that the foam splashed about Aslan's forefeet. All now was level water from where they stood to where the waters met the sky.

And out there it began to grow light. A streak of dreary and disastrous dawn spread along the horizon, and widened and grew brighter, till in the end they hardly noticed the light of the stars who stood behind them. At last the sun came up. When it did, the Lord Digory and the Lady Polly looked at one another and gave a little nod: those two, in a different world, had once seen a dying sun, and so they knew at once that this sun also was dying. It was three times - twenty times - as big as it ought to be, and very dark red. As its rays fell upon the great Time-giant, he turned red too: and in the reflection of that sun the whole waste of shoreless waters looked like blood.

Then the Moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red. And at the sight of her the sun began shooting out great flames, like whiskers or snakes of crimson fire, towards her. It is as if he were an octopus trying to draw her to himself in his tentacles. And perhaps he did draw her. At any rate she came to him, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly, till at last his long flames licked round her and the two ran together and became one huge ball like a burning coal. Great lumps of fire came dropping out of it into the sea and clouds of steam rose up.

Then Aslan said, "Now make an end."

The giant threw his horn into the sea. Then he stretched out one arm - very black it looked, and thousands of miles long - across the sky till his hand reached the Sun. He took the Sun and squeezed it in his hand as you would squeeze an orange. And instantly there was total darkness.

Everyone except Aslan jumped back from the ice-cold air which now blew through the Doorway. Its edges were already covered with icicles.

"Peter, High King of Narnia," said Aslan. "Shut the Door."

龍和巨型蜥蜴現在把納尼亞當做它們的天下了。它們跑來跑去，把樹木連根拔起，把樹木嘎吱嘎吱地大嚼大吃，彷彿它們是大蔥似的。頃刻之間，樹林都消失了。整個兒鄉村變得光禿禿的，你可以看得見各種各樣的東西的形狀——看得見一切你以前從未注意過的小丘和小洞。青草死了。蒂蓮不久便發覺他正在瞧着一個光禿禿的石頭和泥土的世界了。簡直很難相信曾經有什麼東西在這地方生存過的。怪物們自己也老了，躺下了，死了。他們的肉皺縮枯槁了，骨頭露出來了，不久他們就只剩下巨大的骷髏，東一個西一個地躺在沒有生命的石頭上，看上去彷彿已經死了好幾千年了。好久好久，萬籟俱寂。

最後，某種白色的東西——在那站着的流星人的照耀下，一道漫長而平整的白色——正從世界的東頭向他們移動過來。

一個向四面八方傳開來的聲音打破了沉寂：起初是汩汩聲，然後是嘩嘩聲，最後是澎湃聲。現在他們看得出正在涌過來的是什麼，速度又有多快。這是一道冒着泡沫的水牆。大海正在漲潮。在這沒有樹木的世界上，你可以看得十分清楚。你看得見河流在變闊，湖泊在變大，分開的湖在合併成大湖，流域在演變成爲新的湖泊，小山在變成島嶼，然後這些島嶼也消失了。他們左邊的高沼地和右邊的崇山峻嶺，都崩潰了，轟然塌方了，劈劈啪啪地落到上漲的大水裏去了。大水打着漩涌到了那個門口（但從未涌過門去），所以泡沫在阿斯蘭的前腿附近飛濺着。從他們立足之處直到水天相接之處，現在到處都是同一水平面的一片大水了。

外界開始出現亮光了。一道陰沉而不祥的曙光綿亙在地平線上，逐漸擴大，逐漸明亮，終於使他們幾乎不再注意站在他們背後的繁星的光亮了。最後，太陽升起來了。太陽升起之時，迪格雷勳爵和波莉夫人互相看了一眼，稍稍點了點頭：這兩位老人，在一個異樣的世界裏，曾經一度看見過一個垂死的太陽，所以他們立刻知道這個太陽也是處於垂死狀態的。太陽比它正常的模樣大三倍，甚至二十倍，呈暗紅色。太陽的光芒落在魁偉的時間巨人身上時，巨人也變得紅紅的了。在這陽光的反照裏，整個兒無邊無際的荒荒涼涼的大水看上去像鮮血般殷紅。

然後月亮升起來了，它的方位完全搞錯了，非常靠近太陽，它看上去也是紅紅的。太陽看到了月亮，它就開始向月亮放射出巨大的火焰，像是殷紅的火髯或火蛇。太陽好像是條章魚，試圖把月亮拉到它的觸手中間去。也許太陽確實在拉月亮哩。無論如何，月亮在向太陽靠攏，開頭是慢慢地，但隨即愈來愈快了，最後，太陽長長的火焰舔着月亮的周圍，兩者跑到一起，併成一個大球，像一堆熊熊燃燒的煤。大塊的火從大球裏掉下來，落在海里，蒸汽的雲霧從海上升起。

於是阿斯蘭說道：“現在結束吧。”

時間巨人把它的號角扔進大海里。然後他伸出一條胳膊——幾英里長，看上去顏色很黑——穿越天空，直至他的手碰到了太陽。他拿着太陽，在手中壓榨太陽，就像你壓榨橘子一樣。天地問立刻全部漆黑了。

每個人都認爲阿斯蘭會從吹着冷風的門口跳回來，那門上已經結滿冰柱了。

“彼得，納尼亞的至尊王，”阿斯蘭說道，“關上門吧。”