民谣歌者的真言 Testimony of the Balladeer

作者：Marcus Terrell Smith

嘿，你！对，就是你！你这个德玛西亚人看着很体面，懂得倾听——你应该愿意驻足片刻，听听一个老人的惊奇见闻和善意警告吧。你要知道，我正在履行一项使命，是星界游神赋予我的，而你可以帮我。

You, there! Yes, you! You look like a fine Demacian with working ears—one who might stay a stretch and heed the warnings of an old man who has seen the impossible. I’m on a quest, you see, at the bidding of the Wandering Caretaker, and you can help!

我必须取回……嗯，我最好还是先说清来龙去脉。

I must retrieve... Well, it’s best that I explain.

来吧，来吧。别躲。请听我的故事，字字属实。

Come, now. Don’t shy away. Hear my tale, which is entirely true...

我最开始是被铃铛的叮咚声吵醒的，那是我老妈的祖传风铃，传了两百年，就挂在我窗前，在屋外狂响。她以为自己很聪明，我老妈，她让我相信风铃的夏曲预示着温暖的晴天即将到来。我活到这把年纪，瓦拉尔山谷的宜人季节我就只见过那么几回。哈！砍柴砍起来没个头、还把自己砍伤了的半大小子能证明我说的严冬。那一夜也不例外——一场冬季的风暴正在肆虐。

I was first awoken by the clanging of bells—my mother’s two-hundred-year-old wind chimes—screaming outside, beyond my window. She thought she was quite clever, my mother, convincing me their summer song would signal the coming of warm and sunny days. Even at my age, I can only count a handful of pleasant seasons in Valar’s Hollow. Ha! An adolescence marred by the endless chopping of firewood can attest to that. The night I speak of was no exception—a winter storm was raging.

我的房门突然被吹开，吓了我一大跳，冰冷的风灌进我的屋子。我浑身颤抖着钻进最厚的皮草里，然后往门口走，要把它关严实。不过我犹豫了。我老妈的风铃还在风中狂响。虽然铃声让我想起的主要是艰难困苦的小时候，但却是老妈给我留的念想。我怕它被风刮走，我更怕的是，它叮叮当当哀嚎一整夜不让我睡觉。

I jumped to my feet when my door burst open and the rush of freezing wind filled my room. After scrambling to sheathe my trembling body in the thickest furs I owned, I made my way to the door, ready to slam it shut. But I hesitated. My mother’s chimes were still screaming in the wind. Though they mostly stirred memories of my harsh and laborious upbringing, they provided me with a sense of connection to her. I should not risk losing them, or worse—suffer no sleep from their incessant wailing.

别误会，这串风铃也是有着特别的意义的。我家祖先如何得到这串风铃的故事，讲述了一段难以置信的命运和荣光满载的岁月。它是用铁块铸造的——用来造兵器的金属，弗雷尔卓德最稀罕的物件。只要有哪场战斗分出了胜负，我那些东西少但办法多的老祖宗——拣物人，就会走进战场，拣回那些躺在红雪里等着生锈的铁块。

Don’t get me wrong, the chimes did have a certain appeal. Stories of how they came into my family’s possession told of an incredible destiny and a celebrated past. They were forged from ingot—war metals—some of the rarest in the Freljord. Whenever a battle had been lost and won, the Collectors, my poor but resourceful ancestors, entered the battlefield and retrieved what had been left to rust in the blood-stained snow.

她常常喋喋不休地讲起古时候的事，有一次我问，“妈妈，世上有多少铁块啊？”

“How much ingot was out there, mother?” I asked once, as she gushed about ancient times.

“有好几百年的铁块呢。”她回答说。

“Centuries of it,” she replied.

“拣物人拣来做什么？”

“What did the Collectors do with it all?”

“卖给凛冬之爪，”她说着，无奈地耸耸肩，“他们用来制造武器，筹备未至的战争。”随后她停顿一下，微笑着听她的风铃响起，“但我们总是会给自己留一点，用来制作生活的器物，而不是杀戮的工具。”

“Sold it to the Winter’s Claw,” she said, shrugging, “who made more weapons for wars to come.” Then she paused for a moment and smiled as her chimes began to sing. “But there was always a little we kept for ourselves—to make instruments of life, not death.”

一点不假，那串珍贵的风铃给我们的土地带来了美妙的音乐。她说这是“荒年里的吉兆”。她抱病卧床的时候我想为她讨吉利，但根本没用。星界游神在乎的是他自己的美妙音乐，没空救助老弱病患，而我只能守着她滚烫的风铃，怀念她的慈爱和他的无情。

Indeed, those precious chimes were instruments that brought wonderful music to our land. “Good fortune in bad times,” she told me. I prayed for that fortune when she fell ill, but it never came. The Wandering Caretaker was more concerned with his own wonderful music than helping the infirm, and I was left with her infernal chimes to remember them both by.

我说跑题了。

I digress.

我深吸一口气，推开门来到外面，眼前的景象让我呆住了：一个半透明的小活物，飘在我面前，丝毫不受风暴的影响。它没有翅膀也没有手臂，但它就挂在半空中，似乎是被某种丑恶的魔法钉在了空气的砖块上。它圆圆的脑袋上镶着两只炯炯燃烧的眼睛，它隔着肚皮有三颗闪闪的星星，开始闪烁摇曳。我万没想到，老妈的风铃有了反应，其中一个铃铛，就像小孩子伸出手一样，飘向那个发光的活物，发出了与它一样的星光。

Taking a deep breath, I pushed my way outside, but I was halted by an impossible sight: Floating in front of me, unaffected by the storm, was a small, translucent creature. Without wings or arms to hold it in place, it hung there, as if some eldritch magic had nailed it to a block of air. Two glowing white eyes like torches were affixed to its orbish head, and three twinkling stars in its belly began to churn and flicker. To my surprise, one of my mother’s chimes responded, and, like a child’s arm, it reached back to the shimmering creature, adopting its starry glow.

可是随后……

But then...

那个铃铛碎了！我听到它的夏曲分崩离析。一道裂缝开始沿着铃铛的侧面延伸，一撮金色的光屑被抽了出来，似乎制造铃铛所用的某种材料正在被它偷走。那个活物要偷的不是光，而是我老妈的眼泪，簌簌落下，我这件爱恨交叠的传家宝正在遭到破坏。我不能，我不愿看到这种事发生！

The chime cracked! And I heard its summer song deform. A fissure that was made etched its way up the chime’s side, and specks of gold light were drawn out from within it, as if certain materials that composed it were being stolen away. Those were not lights the thing was stealing; they were my mother’s tears, falling, as this beloved yet irritating heirloom was quickly being destroyed. I could not—I would not let that happen!

于是我冲进暴风雪，抓住了那只风铃。我摸到它的同时，听到从远方传来一声嘹亮的号角。我不清楚为什么。我用尽全力往回拉，但那个活物的魔法太强，我无力抵抗。更糟糕的是，我觉得整个人都被拽到了天上，双脚完全离地。很快我就被拉上了天空，被那个坏蛋小东西拽上了云际！

So I leapt into the blizzard and took hold of the chime. At its touch, I heard the blast of a horn in the distance. Why, I was not sure. I pulled back with all my might, but the creature’s magic was too strong to overcome. And worse, I felt my entire body jerk skyward, and my feet left the ground. Soon I was hurtling into the heavens, towed into the clouds by the befouled moppet!

咔嚓！又一道裂隙沿着铃铛延伸。然后我看到有东西在我和它之间现了形，一个碎片，猜不出属于怎样的整体，但它逐渐在空中实体化。我觉得只有这个东西才能救我的命，于是就紧紧抓了上去。

CRACK! Another break scribbled its way down the chime. Then I saw something taking shape in the space between us—a shard, a piece of a whole, was materializing. Believing it would be the only thing to save me, I grasped it.

我伸出手的同时，回望刚才那个坏心眼的活物，却发现它已经消失了。刚才它所在的地方，漂浮着的是那个神秘而伟大的，星界游神。有些人祈祷了一辈子求他现世，然而，就像我老妈说的那样，风铃唤来了他。巴德似乎在与我对视……盯着我的灵魂深处……好奇我为什么会在那个地方。但想解释已经来不及了。

As I reached, I glanced back to the wicked creature, only to realize that it had disappeared. In its place, hovering before me in all his mystic glory, was the Wandering Caretaker. It had taken an entire lifetime of prayer for him to appear, and, as my mother had promised, the chimes brought him forth. The Bard seemed to stare back at me... into me... curious of my being there. But it was too late to explain.

突然刮来一阵风，随后是一股热浪。我觉得胳膊被抻成了藤条。我的身体被拖在后面，歪扭着、翻滚着，似乎正被带到什么地方——一个奇异的地方！

There suddenly came a rush of wind and a wave of heat. I felt my arm stretch the length of a vine. My body followed, spinning and twisting, as I was being taken somewhere—an otherworldly place!

至于我究竟到了哪里，接下来我来伴着老妈的旧扬琴唱出来。

As to where I ended up, my mother’s old dulcimer here will aid me as I sing...

铃

The Bells

那是声音描绘的高远，

’Twas sound that harkened visions of a place.

Divine, Bard’s music just beyond the veil.

游神巴德，来自帷幕彼端。

A firmament revealed to me in space,

星辰的钟鼓管弦，

In string and drum and reed celestial.

Bard opened up the cosmos wide to me!

九霄之上，为我揭示空天。

I felt Beginning, End, and In Between.

巴德敞开宇宙之门，

Where waves had never stirred that lampless sea,

感知开端、终结与其间。

We heard Sol first prepare the stars to ring.

No human witness had there ever been,

沉寂之海，无光无纹，

But I alone did hear the act take form.

只听索尔备办星辰的铃音。

That symphony changed me from within,

此景自古无人得见，

My mortal body suddenly transformed.

A spirit now, a meep celestial,

动静之形唯我听闻。

Ascended like the Aspects in this dream,

合奏催我脱胎换骨，

I sang with Bard throughout the sonic realm,

And tended to his will a century.

凡躯肉体顷刻蜕变。

The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!

幻化跻登，天界木灵，

But then I heard a bell begin to bend

如梦如虚，如星灵飞升。

And felt a darkness silencing the song.

I told my brethren and my master then

与巴德同唱，于音域合歌，

And travel all we did to right the wrong.

悉心百年，倾听心声。

And we were brought before a gaping maw,

铃！铃！铃！

An empty soundless pit devoid of light.

听，一只响铃弯折走音，

My ears beheld such darkness from beyond;

It filled my soul with terror and with fright.

一股黑暗压灭了歌声。

I fear the hordes inside sang me a song,

同胞与神主接连警醒，

One that has no start; it only ends.

For when I peered into that deep unknown,

遍迹寰宇，把错误纠正。

I felt my own music crook and bend.

不期而遇，无底的巨口，

So I forced my ears above to the divine,

空无的洞，连光都吞走。

Turned back to what is good and what is right.

But then I caught the rip—the Void’s divide,

用耳朵看见彼端的黑手，

And soon beheld destruction of the light.

灵魂被注入恐惧与颤抖。

The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!

巨口唱出骇人的怪歌，

In billions were the fragments, were these chimes,

Showered ’cross the land, when darkness split

无初无始，仅有终末。

The bell that tolls the rhythm and the time,

如若窥探深处的未明，

Runeterra’s hymn, whose song may be forfeit.

To close the door and bring the notes in line

原初的乐曲恐将变形。

The Bard had sent us scouring the world.

仰天倾听神明之声，

With every shard, a stitch to recombine

回归正轨，依循长恒。

What the Void had torn when it emerged.

The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!

但虚空的裂口咬住我不松，

Soon I awoke in bed, a meep no more,

令我见证光的分崩。

And back in Valar’s Hollow did I dwell,

铃！铃！铃！

I tore my mother’s chimes from off that door,

万亿碎片，化为铃音，

And offered Bard more shards to fix the bell.

Since, my charge is to collect more chimes

黑暗撕裂之际，散落于苍旻。

Through wind and rain and sun and land and sea.

铃动时计，万物运转，

I pray that every treasure will rewind

That music that the Void did play to me.

符文之地的歌声，务必珍存。

The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!

欲要封门，重谱音符，

Dear Demacian, I have come a long way and farther still to warn everyone of the darkness that threatens to silence the music of this world. Runeterra is a bell—a world bell—that has been corroded by evil. Its fragments, its chimes, must be found to make it whole again.

奉巴德之命，寻遍四海五湖。

And our first step is to place all precious metals in your possession in my basket. I will take them, inspect them, sing to them Bard’s divine music to remove any chimes of the world bell within them. Any chimeless pieces I will, of course, return to you.

No! Wait! Don’t walk away—what I tell you is true! Please, listen. There isn’t much time. The end of our world is nigh...

铃音的碎片，是弥合的针线，

And only Bard and his meeps can save us.

虚空的裂口由此缝补。

铃！铃！铃！

木灵梦醒，我重归床榻，

瓦拉尔山谷，彼时的家。

风铃依在，我决绝摘下，

献给巴德，修葺铃挂。

我要把世间铃音纳藏，

不舍昼夜，风雨兼程。

但愿琦珍辎重不负所望，

助我抗逆虚空，夏曲永唱。

铃！铃！铃！

亲爱的德玛西亚客官，我从远道而来，还要前往更远的地方去，为的就是要提醒所有人，正有一片黑暗，要熄灭这个世界的音乐。符文之地就是一只铃——一个世界之铃，现已被邪恶侵蚀。必须找到所有碎片、所有铃音，才能把它拼凑完整。

我们力所能及的，就是把你身上所有贵重金属都放进我的篮子里。我会把它们带走，仔细检查，对它们唱出巴德的神圣乐曲，取出其中的世界铃音。没有铃音的碎片，我自然会归还给你。

别！等一下！请留步，我说的都是真的！拜托了，请听我一言。时间已经不多了，世界的末日迫在眉睫……

而只有巴德和他的木灵能救我们。