《最後一戰》第15期:夜裏發生的事(3)

Far away there appeared a red light. Then it disappeared for a moment and came back again, bigger and stronger. Then he could see dark shapes going to and fro on this side of the light and carrying bundles and throwing them down. He knew now what he was looking at. It was a bonfire, newly lit, and people were throwing bundles of brushwood on to it. Presently it blazed up and Tirian could see that it was on the very top of the hill. He could see quite clearly the stable behind it, all lit up in the red glow, and a great crowd of Beasts and Men between the fire and himself. A small figure, hunched up beside the fire, must be the Ape. It was saying something to the crowd, but he could not hear what. Then it went and bowed three times to the ground in front of the door of the stable. Then it got up and opened the door. And something on four legs - something that walked rather stiffly - came out of the stable and stood facing the crowd.
A great wailing or howling went up, so loud that Tirian could hear some of the words.
"Aslan! Aslan! Aslan!" cried the Beasts. "Speak to us. Comfort us. Be angry with us no more."
From where Tirian was he could not make out very clearly what the thing was; but he could see that it was yellow and hairy. He had never seen the Great Lion. He had never seen a common lion. He couldn't be sure that what he saw was not the real Aslan. He had not expected Aslan to look like that stiff thing which stood and said nothing. But how could one be sure? For a moment horrible thoughts went through his mind: then he remembered the nonsense about Tash and Aslan being the same and knew that the whole thing must be a cheat.
The Ape put his head close up to the yellow thing's head as if he were listening to something it was whispering to him. Then he turned and spoke to the crowd, and the crowd wailed again. Then the yellow thing turned clumsily round and walked - you might almost say, waddled - back into the stable and the Ape shut the door behind it. After that the fire must have been put out for the light vanished quite suddenly, and Tirian was once more alone with the cold and the darkness.
He thought of other Kings who had lived and died in Narnia in old times and it seemed to him that none of them had ever been so unlucky as himself. He thought of his great-grandfather's great-grandfather King Rilian who had been stolen away by a Witch when he was only a young prince and kept hidden for years in the dark caves beneath the land of the Northern Giants. But then it had all come; right in the end, for two mysterious children had suddenly appeared from the land beyond the world's end and had rescued him so that he came home to Narnia and had a long and prosperous reign. "It's not like that with me," said Tirian to himself. Then he went further back and: thought about Rilian's father, Caspian the Seafarer, whose wicked uncle King Miraz had tried to murder him and how Caspian had fled away into the woods and lived among the Dwarfs. But that story too had all come right in the end: for Caspian also had been helped by children - only there were four of them that time - who came from somewhere beyond the world and fought a great battle and set him on his father's throne. "But it was all long ago," said Tirian to himself. "That sort of thing doesn't happen now." And then he remembered (for he had always been good at history when he was a boy) how those same four children who had helped Caspian had been in Narnia over a thousand years before; and it was then that they had done the most remarkable thing of all. For then they had defeated the terrible White Witch and ended the Hundred Years of Winter, and after that they had reigned (all four of them together) at Cair Paravel, till they were no longer children but great Kings and lovely Queens, and their reign had been the golden age of Narnia. And Aslan had come into that story a lot. He had come into all the other stories too, as Tirian now remembered. "Aslan - and children from another world," thought Tirian. "They have always come in when things were at their worst. Oh, if only they could now."
And he called out "Aslan! Aslan! Aslan! Come and help us now."

遠處出現一片紅光。接着，紅光消失了一會兒又亮起來了，面積更大，光芒更強烈。他看得見在火光的這一邊有黑黑的人影來回走動，揹着一捆捆的東西，把它們一一丟在地上。現在他明白他正在瞧着的是什麼東西了。原來是個剛點燃起來的篝火，人們正在把一捆捆木柴丟進去。不久，篝火熊熊地燃燒起來了，蒂蓮看得出篝火就在那個山頂上。他能夠十分清楚地看到篝火後的馬廄，在通紅的火光裏它全都照亮了；在篝火與他本人之間，有一大羣野獸和人；篝火旁邊，隆起一個小小形體，必定是無尾猿了。它在同羣衆說話，但他聽不見。然後它走到馬廄門前，三次鞠躬到地。接着它站起身來，打開馬廄的門。於是一頭四條腿的動物——一頭走路十分不靈活的動物——從馬廄裏走出來了，站着面向羣衆。
騰起了一大片哀鳴和號啕的聲音，十分響亮，蒂蓮聽得出其中幾個字。"阿斯蘭!阿斯蘭!阿斯蘭!"衆野獸大聲喊道，"對我們講話吧。安慰我們吧！別再跟我們生氣吧。"
從蒂蓮所站的地方望過去，他沒法十分清楚地看出來它是什麼東西，但他看得出它是黃黃的、渾身都是毛。他從來沒有見過偉大的獅王。他也從來沒見過一頭普通的獅子。他沒有把握肯定他所看到的不是阿斯蘭。他不曾料到阿斯蘭竟看上去像那條站着不說話的、呆板僵化的畜生。然而，怎樣纔能有把握呢?片刻之間，恐怖的思想兜上他的心頭：接着他記起了關於塔什和阿斯蘭是同一個神祇的信口雌黃，覺得這整個兒事情必定是個騙局。
無尾猿把他的頭挨近黃色畜生的腦袋，彷彿它在靜聽某些講給它聽的悄悄話。然後它轉而向羣衆講話，羣衆重又哀號了。接着，黃色畜生笨拙地轉過身體，然後邁步走回去——幾乎可以說是蹣跚而行——走進了馬廄，無尾猿便在它背後把門關上。這之後，篝火必定是被撲滅了，因爲光芒突然消失；而蒂蓮又重新獨自面對着寒冷和黑暗。
他想起古時候在納尼亞生活和逝世的其他國王們，在他看來，似乎沒有一個國王曾經像他那樣倒黴的。他想起他那曾祖父的曾祖父）國王瑞廉——當他不過是個年輕王子時，便被一個女巫盜走，藏在北方巨人的土地下的黑洞裏好多年。但結果卻逢凶化吉，兩個來自世界盡頭之外的孩子突然出現了，他們救了他，他就回到納尼亞的家裏，進行着長期的繁榮昌盛的統治。"跟我的情況可大不相同。"蒂蓮跟他自己說道。然後他追溯到瑞廉的父親——航海者凱斯賓，他那邪惡的叔父彌若茲曾設法謀害他，凱斯賓便逃進森林裏，生活在小矮人們中間。但這故事也有個否極泰來的好結局；因爲凱斯賓也得到了兒童們的幫助——只不過當時有四個兒童——他們來自外部世界，打了一個大仗，扶他登上了他父親的王位。"但這都是很久很久以前的事了，"蒂蓮跟他自己說道，"如今這種事情是不會發生的了。"接着他又想起(因爲他是個孩子時就對歷史很熟悉了)幫助過凱斯賓的四個孩子，一千多年以前曾在納尼亞待過，就是在那個時候，他們打敗了白女巫，結束了幾百年的冬天，此後他們就在凱爾帕拉維爾統治(四個人一起統治)多年，終於他們不復是兒童，而是至尊王和美麗可愛的女王，而他們統治的歲月便成了納尼亞的黃金時代。在那個故事裏，向斯蘭曾多次出現過。就蒂蓮現在記得的，阿斯蘭在一切其他的故事裏也出現過。"阿斯蘭——以及來自另一個世界的孩子們，"蒂蓮心中想道，"在事情最糟糕最險惡的時候，他們總是出現的。啊，如果他們現在能出現，那有多好啊。"
於是他大聲呼喚道"阿斯蘭!阿斯蘭!阿斯蘭!現在就來幫助我們呀!"