利刃之名 The Name of the Blade

作者：Ian St. Martin

空气中弥漫着铜锈味。

There is copper in the air.

鲜血的质感腾了上来，我的后背紧紧贴在阴影中，双眼始终打量着她。

The tang of fresh blood rises up to me, my back pressed into the shadows while I study her.

她的杀戮。

As she kills.

她是被驱赶至此的，这是一个宽敞的大堂，装饰豪华，两个出口，但宽阔的厅堂和高耸的拱顶让我可以轻松跟随她，悄无声息。追赶她的人并没有掩盖声音，武器和盔甲在奔跑中叮当乱响，来者不善。在外行人看来，她已经被困住了，而被逼到角落的刺客必死无疑，但我很清楚，刀刃只是她众多武器之一，而且远不及她最锋利的东西。

She was driven here, a large chamber, decoratively appointed, two exits, but through wide halls and high arched ceilings it was easy enough for me to follow her, and do it in silence. Her pursuers did not, a charging crash of weapons and armor brought to bear against her. To the uninitiated she appears trapped, and a cornered assassin is a dead one, but I know well that her blades are but one of her weapons, and far from her keenest.

我看出了她招式中隐藏的规律，只不过天衣无缝地衔接成了流畅的动作。看似大开大合的姿势中藏着微妙的小动作，她在不断适应战况，抓住手边的每个破绽。我十分了解她的暴力杀戮在遵循怎样的教诲，因为我也被传授了同样的知识。那是传承给少数几人的智慧，它铸成了一个志同道合的家庭，不是血亲，胜似血亲。

I recognize the hidden patterns of her strikes, thought translating seamlessly into action. The subtle movements masked by grander gestures as she adapts to exploit every weakness presented to her. I know the teachings that inform her violence, because they were taught to me as well. Wisdom passed down to only a handful, forging a family of purpose, if not of blood.

这是她与生俱来的继承权，但对我来说则是在黑暗小巷里用割开的喉咙赢取来的机会。我看到她遵循着我们所学的原则，然后我又看到她将那些原则打破。

It is her birthright, while for me it was earned in darkened alleyways, and the frothing chokes of slit throats. I see her follow the principles of our teachings, and then I see her break them.

她的目标出现了，但她却故意让他们看到自己，然后才开始动手。杀戮的过程中带着炫耀。杂音、傲慢、多余动作。每个做法都让她更加暴露，让她的护甲裂开更大的口子，这是对她血脉的背叛。我的上唇收紧，忍不住想要抽动，但我是不会动的石头。屈服于这样的弱点只会让我远离“锋刃”。

Her target appears, and she allows them to see her before the strike comes. There is flourish to the killing. Noise. Arrogance. Wasted energy. Each choice exposes her more, cracking her armor wider, betraying her lineage. My upper lip constricts, desperate to twitch, but I am stone. Succumbing to such weakness would only carry me further from the Edge.

我此前也曾见过这般野心。作为帝国下层世界中的一个孩子，我曾看见野心勃勃之人抬起头挺起胸，高出泛泛之众，突出在所有人视线中，卓尔不群。然后我看见人群将其视为异类并宰杀。

I have seen such ambition before. As a child in the world beneath the empire, I watched the ambitious rise head and shoulders above their fellows, just high enough for all to see them, standing out from the masses. And then I watched the masses butcher them for it.

我很快就懂得了暗影的庇佑，懂得了寂静的掩护，并从未忘记是它们让我活下来。可现在我看到她同时违背了暗影和寂静，正在走向失败的悬崖。这不会成为她首次失败。因为我记得——

I learned the sanctuary of shadow quickly, the shield that silence can be, and never forgetting that has kept me alive. I watch her defy them both, blundering to the precipice of failure. And it would not be the first time. I remember—

——冰冷的森林中，我正伏在一根结满霜晶的树干上，紧盯着。等待她出现。

—the cold of the forest, the glittering frost on the branch where I perched, watching. Waiting for her to appear.她出现的时候，浑身裹着浓重的尘灰气味——那是我们视野远方刚刚冷却下来的硝烟。这股气味牢牢地附着在她身上，恰如她的失败一样无法摆脱。那一天，因为她的失败，我便成了那个代价。When she did, she was wreathed in the ashen smell of the battle cooling just beyond our view. It clung to her as surely as her failure. There is always a price for failure. That day, for her, I had been made that price.我已制定好完美的计划。我不允许自己出现瑕疵。地面的坡度、林间的风速与风向。她的储备、她的服装、她的武器、她的步态。手中的刀锋小巧光洁，指尖的伤疤记录着千次瑕疵。一切在我脑海中闪过，我的计划已经可以展开。我可以出手了。I planned it all perfectly. I wouldn’t allow myself anything less. The slope of the ground, the strength and direction of the wind whistling through the trees. Her bearing, her garb, her weapons, and her gait. The small, clean blade held in fingers etched with a thousand tiny scars of imperfection. It all passed through my mind, before I was free to unfold. To strike.我落下的时候没有发出声音。我的刀锋割开了空气，阻滞感，然后又是空气。刀锋经过之处留下了血的轨迹。暗红色的花朵在冰冷的空气中缓缓绽放。There was no sound when I descended. My blade cut air, was interrupted, air again. Blood trailed behind its path, a sluggish bloom of darkest red uncurled into icy air.我在冲力的惯性下与她擦肩而过，和我计划中的一样。我回过头，心平气稳。我应该取下什么样的战利品作为她性命的凭证呢？她的刀刃？一缕头发？她的双眼？My momentum carried me past her, as I planned. I looked back, my mind calm. What trophy would be proof enough? Her blades? A lock of hair? Her eyes?我回过身看到她还站着。她捂着左眼，血从指缝间涌出，但她并没有倒下。我心头一紧。虽然天气寒冷，但我肋间却淌下汗珠。她应该被一击毙命才对。I turned and saw her standing. She clutched her left eye, blood squirting between fingers, but she didn’t fall. My stomach tightened. A bead of sweat trickled down my ribs, despite the cold. She was supposed to fall after the strike.一击毙命。The one strike.她不应该还活着。我直白地告诉了她。那些话语同样没能让她毙命，于是我又说了一遍。我对她大吼。She should not be alive. I told her so. The words did not fell her, so I said them again. I screamed them at her.她用刀刃回答了我。She answered with the edges of her blades.

我们开始战斗，或者准确地说，是她开始了战斗。她如同一道红发与寒光的残影，疼痛、技巧与怒火以同等的力量注入她一次次的挥砍。愤怒扭曲了她的姿态，让我刚刚留下的伤口继续绽开。

We fought, or rather, she fought. She was a blur of red hair and flashing silver, her cuts and slashes propelled by pain, skill, and rage in equal measure. Anger twisted her features, keeping the wound I gave her from closing.

我在她身边飘动流淌，与她的火暴相比显得冰冷且无色。有三次她差点就要行刀入骨，让我把鲜血尽洒到这片铺满白霜的林地上，但她的情绪提前暴露了攻击意图，让我有足够的时间挪开身体。战斗的直觉很不错，但她却没有提前计划好如何交战，所以我体内的鲜血没有洒出来。I flowed around her, cold and colorless against her passion. Three times she came close to opening me to the bone, to emptying my lifeblood upon the frosted earth of the forest floor, but emotion betrayed the blows early enough for me to displace myself. The instinct was there, but she did not plan the engagement, and so I kept my blood within me.我瞄见了一个空档，唯一一个，我本可以就此了结她。她本可能倒在那里，这一次不会再有意外。没人会知道我的过错，除了我自己。I glimpsed an opening, once, where I could have ended her. She would have fallen, for true this time. Nobody would have known of my mistake, nobody but me.我看到了空档，但我看着它来了又走。我已失败了一次，所以不会再尝试第二次，如果刚才是我倒在她手下，那也是我技不如人。现在的我和她没什么区别。I saw the opening, but I let it pass me by. After my failed strike I would not try a second, and should I have fallen to her, it was deserved. I was now no different than she was.她看我收起了刀，也停止了进攻。She watched me as I put my blade away, and she stopped.她沿着伤口摸了摸脸，那道伤将留下永久的疤。冷气让她的呼吸粗浅，她说话的同时鼻子在愤怒地抽动。她的失败让我来到这里，也让她自己念念不忘，而她决心要改正一切。弥补过错。She touched her face again, tracing a wound that would never leave her. Breath feathered out from the cold, angry slashes from her nose as she spoke. Her own failure that brought me here loomed over her, and she was resolved to set it right. To atone for it.我无法再让自己挡住她的去路。那将是莫大的虚伪。我现在的任务是回去接受审判，并等待自己所需付出的代价。I could not bring myself to stand in her way, not anymore. The hypocrisy would be too great. My duty was to return and face judgment, and see what price I had to pay.她转过身走向战场，回到她走来的方向，但临行前她问了我的名字。她没问是不是她父亲派我来，她对此已经心知肚明——她只想知道父亲派出的刀锋叫什么名字。Before turning back toward the battlefield, leaving the way she came, she asked me who I was. She did not ask if her father sent me, that much was clear to her—all but the name of the blade he sent.我没有她要的答案。我的名字从来都不重要。我也是这么对她说的，但她却不依不饶。我回忆过去，想起了我在帝国下层世界的时候。I did not have an answer for her. My name had never mattered. I told her so, but saw she would not relent. I thought back, remembering the world under the empire then.

在下面的时候，在那被我抛弃的血染的日子里，他们称我为泰隆。

Down there, in those final, blood-soaked days before I left it all behind, they called me Talon.

她的目标血洒遍地，现在已经成为她的刀下鬼。我看到她迅速解决了剩下几个敢上前挑战的士兵。我想象着自己是最后那名士兵，看到他看不到的破绽，最后他身首异处，加入了亡者的行列。

Blood spreads out across the stones from her target, now her kill. I watch her make quick work of the soldiers who remain to challenge her. I imagine myself in the place of the last of them, seeing the openings he does not, before his head rolls from his shoulders and he joins the dead.

随后的几秒钟里，她欣赏着自己的作品。她在微笑，左眼前纵贯的那道苍白伤疤跟着笑容一起收紧。笑容突然变冷——她察觉到我了？——随后她像一阵烟雾般消失在走廊远处。

For a handful of seconds she admires her work. She is smiling, the pale scar bisecting her left eye flexing. The smile goes cold—does she sense me?—before she disappears down the corridor like smoke.

我稍等片刻，又等片刻，然后允许自己再次喘气。紧绷了数小时的肌肉略微松弛一丝。直到这个时候，她走远了以后，我才拿出小刀。

I wait a moment, two, and then I allow myself to breathe again. Muscles clamped tight for hours loosen a fraction. Only now, with her gone, do I produce the knife.

我的指尖布满千道伤疤，每道伤疤都是我向着“锋刃”迈进的一小步，那是我毕生追求的、可望而不可即的完美状态。那把小刀在我指尖迅速且娴熟地转了一圈，又一圈。又是一圈。刀刃光洁，那天它所拜会的鲜血早已消失，它在等待我再次成为她失败后的代价。

My fingers are pebbled with a thousand scars, each a single tiny step on my path toward the Edge, that unattainable perfect state I strive for. I spin the knife in a quick, practiced orbit, then again. And again. The blade is clean, the blood that once graced it on that day long since crumbled away, waiting for the day I might be made the price for her failure again.

我称它为卡特琳娜。

I call it Katarina.