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[CaptainSnafu]

作者：Clark Ashton Smith

译者：CaptainSnafu

注：本作为克苏鲁神话体系“终北之地”系列中的一篇。未经允许，请勿转载。

Quanga the huntsman, with Hoom Feethos and Eibur Tsanth, two of the most enterprising jewelers of Iqqua, had crossed the borders of a region into which men went but seldom — and wherefrom they returned even more rarely. Travelling north from Iqqua, they had passed into desolate Mhu Thulan, where the great glacier of Polarion had rolled like a frozen sea upon wealthy and far-famed cities, covering the broad isthmus from shore to shore beneath fathoms of perpetual ice.

猎人匡加（Quanga），连同胡姆·菲索斯（Hoom Feethos）和埃布尔·赞思（Eibur Tsanth）这两位伊克夸（Iqqua）最具进取心的珠宝商一起，越过了一个地区的边界——彼处去者甚少，得返者更是稀寥。他们从伊克夸向北行进，进入了荒凉的穆图兰（Mhu Thulan），在那里，极地的巨大冰川像高耸翻腾却被冻结的海洋一般，笼罩着一座座富饶而驰名的城市——它们在数英尺深的永冻寒冰之下，横越海岸两端地覆遍了宽阔的地峡。

The shell-shaped domes of Cerngoth, it was fabled, could still be seen deep down in the glaciation; and the high, keen spires of Oggon-Zhai were embedded therein, together with fern-palm and mammoth and the square black temples of the god Tsathoggua. All this had occurred many centuries ago; and still the ice, a mighty, glittering rampart, was moving south upon deserted lands.

传说中，森戈夫（Cerngoth）的壳形穹顶仍可被目视于冰川深处。奥格贡·扎伊（Oggon-Zhai）高耸锋锐的尖塔就镶嵌其中，一同的还有苏铁、猛犸象和撒托古亚（Tsathoggua）神的方形黑色庙宇。所有这一切都发生在许多个世纪以前，而寒冰这座闪闪发光的坚实堡垒，仍在荒芜的土地上向南推移。

Now, in the path of the embattled glacier, Quanga led his companions on a bold quest. Their object was nothing less than the retrieval of the rubies of King Haalor, who, with the wizard Ommum-Vog and many full-caparisoned soldiers, had gone out five decades before to make war upon the polar ice. From this fantastic expedition, neither Haalor nor OmmumVog had come back; and the sorry, ragged remnant of their men-at-arms, returning to Iqqua, after two moons, had told a dire tale.

如今，在被冰川所围困的路途上，匡加正引领着他同伴们执行一项冒险的任务。他们的目标是至少寻回国王哈洛（Haalor）的红宝石。在五十年前，这位国王曾与巫师奥蒙姆·沃格（Ommum-Vog）率领着众多盛装覆裹的士兵出征，向极地的严冰宣战。而在那次梦幻般的探险中，无论哈洛还是奥蒙姆·沃格，都未得复返。一些破败残存的可怜士兵则在两个月后回到了伊克夸，讲述出一个恐怖的故事。

The army, they said, had made its encampment on a sort of knoll, carefully chosen by Ommum-Vog, in full sight of the vanward ice. Then the mighty sorcerer, standing with Haalor amid a ring of braziers that fumed incessantly with golden smoke, and reciting runes that were older than the world, had conjured up a fiery orb, vaster and redder than the southwardcircling sun of heaven. And the orb, with blazing beams that smote from the zenith, torrid and effulgent, had caused the sun to seem no more than a daylight moon, and the soldiers had almost swooned from its heat in their heavy panoply. But beneath its beams the verges of the glacier melted and ran in swift rills and rivers, so that Haalor for a time was hopeful of reconquering the realm of Mhu Thulan over which his forefathers had ruled in bygone ages.

据他们说，军队扎营在一个类似于小丘的地方，由奥蒙姆·沃格谨慎选定，前方满目的坚冰一览无遗。然后，那名强大的术士与哈洛一同立于不断冒出金色烟雾的火盆圆环之中，吟诵着似乎比这个世界还要古老的咒文。一个怒燃的火球应召而生，比朝南环行的天堂之阳更为巨大和炽红。而那火球，从天顶迸发出侵袭万物的灼眼光芒，炽热且灿烂，使太阳显得不过一轮日间的月亮。重装全备的士兵们也几乎因为炎热而昏晕。但在光照之下，冰川的边缘融化成了淙潺湍流的河溪 ，让哈洛在一时之间也燃起了重夺穆图兰——这片在过去曾归他先祖们所统治的领地之希望。

The rushing waters had deepened, flowing past the knoll on which the army waited. Then, as if by a hostile magic, the rivers began to give forth a pale and stifling mist, that blinded the conjured sun of Ommum-Vog, so that its sultry beams grew faint and chill and had power no longer on the ice.

奔涌的水体变得宽深，流过了军队所停驻的小丘。随后，河流似乎受到一种充满敌意的魔法所影响，开始蒸腾出苍白且令人窒息的雾气，遮蔽了奥蒙姆·沃格的咒化烈阳，使它闷热的射线越发乏弱、甚至冰凉，直至其对寒冰不再能发挥任何力量。

Vainly the wizard had put forth other spells, trying to dissipate the deep and gelid fog. But the vapor drew down, evil and clammy, coiling and wreathing like knots of phantom serpents, and filling men's marrows as if with the cold of death. It covered all the camp, a tangible thing, ever colder and thicker, numbing the limbs of those who groped blindly and could not see the faces of their fellows at arm's-length. A few of the common soldiers, somehow, reached its outer confines and crept fearfully away beneath the wan sun, seeing no longer in the skies the wizard globe that had been called up by Ommum-Vog. And looking back presently, as they fled in strange terror, they beheld, instead of the low-lying mist they had thought to see, a newly frozen sheet of ice that covered the mound on which the king and the sorcerer had made their encampment. The ice rose higher above the ground than a tall man's head; and dimly, in its glittering depth, the fleeing soldiers saw the imprisoned forms of their leaders and companions.

巫师徒劳地施展着其它法术，尝试去驱散那片深厚严寒的迷雾。但那邪恶而湿冷的蒸气下潜着，像缠结的幽灵群蛇般卷绕盘旋，将死亡的寒冷灌彻每个人的骨髓。它覆遍整个营地，愈发严酷、厚重，如同一个有形之物。人们在展臂之近仍无法看清同伴的面容，只能盲目地摸索行进，而寒雾麻痹着他们冻僵的肢体。一些普通士兵不知所以地到达了迷雾的外缘，畏惧地在暗淡的太阳底下匍匐着远离，而奥蒙姆·沃格召唤出的巫术法球已然不见于苍穹。在一种怪异的惊恐中逃亡时，他们随即目睹到的并非是预想中的低伏寒雾，而是一片新结的冰盖。这些能没过高大之人头顶的寒冰拔地而起，披覆在了国王与术士所扎营的山丘上。逃亡的士兵们隐约地看见他们的首领和战友们，已被囚困在闪闪发光的冰层深处。

Deeming that this thing was no natural occurrence, but a sorcery that had been exerted by the great glacier, and that the glacier itself was a live, malignant entity with powers of unknown bale, they did not slacken their flight. And the ice had suffered them to depart in peace, as if to give warning of the fate of those who dared to assail it.

坚信着此事绝非自然所为——而是一种由伟大冰川本身这个有着未知灾厄力量的恶意活体所施发的巫术，士兵们不敢在逃亡上有所懈怠。寒冰也容许了他们和平离去，仿佛是为了对那些胆敢进犯之徒发出厄运的警告。

Some there were who believed the tale, and some who doubted. But the kings that ruled in Iqqua after Haalor went not forth to do battle with the ice; and no wizard rose to make war upon it with conjured suns. Men fled before the everadvancing glaciations; and strange legends were told of how people had been overtaken or cut off in lonely valleys by sudden, diabolic shiftings of the ice, as if it had stretched out a living hand. And legends there were, of awful crevasses that yawned abruptly and closed like monstrous mouths upon them that dared the frozen waste; of winds like the breath of boreal demons, that blasted men's flesh with instant, utter cold and turned them into statues hard as granite. In time the whole region, for many miles before the glacier, was generally shunned; and only the hardiest hunters would follow their quarry into the winter-blighted land.

有的人相信了这个故事，也有人怀疑。但哈洛之后的伊克夸国王皆未再对寒冰出征，也再无巫师以咒化烈阳与之交战。人们在不断向前推进的冰蚀面前退避着，一个怪异的传说也随之传播：冷酷无情的寒冰将会突如其来地剧变、侵袭，如同伸出一只活生生的巨手，将人类压垮，或隔绝在一些荒凉孤寂的山谷中。骇人的冰隙会骤然豁开，又如血盆大口般合上，吞没所有胆敢涉足那片冰封荒原的人。彻骨的冽风则如北地恶魔的吐息，在瞬间使人皮肉绽裂，化为坚如磐石的冰雕。随着时间推移，即使是离冰川还有很远的一整片区域，都会被人们一并地回避，只有最坚强的猎人会跟随着他们的猎物踏步那片被永冬摧残的荒芜之地。

Now it happened that the fearless huntsman Iluac, the elder brother of Quanga, had gone into Mhu Thulan, and had pursued an enormous black fox that led him afar on the mighty fields of the ice-sheet. For many leagues he trailed it, coming never within bowshot of the beast; and at length he came to a great mound on the plain, that seemed to mark the position of a buried hill. And Iluac thought that the fox entered a cavern in the mound; so, with lifted bow and a poised arrow at the string, he went after it into the cavern.

那位最无畏的猎手——匡加的兄长伊路雅克，曾碰巧进入过穆图兰。他追逐着一只硕大的黑狐，被一路引领地深入那片巨大的冰原。他长途跋涉地追踪着那头野兽，却未能缩进到可以张弓射猎的距离。最终他来到了平原上的一个大型山墩，似乎标志着此处有一座被掩埋的山丘。伊路雅克认为狐狸躲进了山中的一个洞穴，于是他提起弓，把毒箭搭在弦上，跟随它进入其中。

The place was like a chamber of boreal kings or gods. All about him, in a dim green light, were huge, glimmering pillars; and giant icicles hung from the roof in the forrn of stalactites. The floor sloped downward; and Iluac came to the cave's end without finding any trace of the fox. But in the transparent depth of the further wall, at the bottom, he saw the standing shapes of many men, deep-frozen and sealed up as in a tomb, with undecaying bodies and fair, unshrunken features. The men were armed with tall spears, and most of them wore the panoply of soldiers. But among them, in the van, there stood a haughty figure attired in the sea-blue robes of a king; and beside him was a bowed ancient who wore the night-black garb of a sorcerer. The robes of the regal figure were heavily sewn with gems that burned like colored stars through the ice; and great rubies red as gouts of newly congealing blood were arranged in the lines of a triangle on the bosom, forming the royal sign of the kings of Iqqua. So Iluac knew, by these tokens, that he had found the tomb of Haalor and OmmumVog and the soldiers with whom they had gone up against the ice in former days.

这个地方就像是北地诸王或众神的密室。在幽暗的绿光中，他周围都是硕大的荧光石柱，以及悬挂在洞顶上的钟乳石状巨型冰锥。地板向下倾斜着，伊路雅克沿路行至洞穴的末端，并未发现狐狸的任何踪迹。但在远处透明的深厚冰墙里，他看见底部立着的许多人类的身影，他们被深度冻结，有着不曾腐朽的躯体、白皙且仍未枯瘪的容貌，如同被封存在陵墓之中。这些人武装着长矛，大多数都穿戴着士兵的重装甲胄。但在他们之中，一个披挂海蓝色国王长袍的傲慢身姿立于领袖位置，在他身边的则是一个夜黑色术士打扮的弓腰老者。那位华贵之人的长袍缝嵌着缤纷的琳琅，透过冰晶，它们正如华彩的繁星般闪烁。而硕大的红宝石像一滴滴新凝结的鲜血，在胸襟排列出三角，组成伊克夸皇权的王室象征。于是，伊路雅克通过这些标志得知，他已寻得了哈洛、奥蒙姆·沃格以及昔日随他们逆冰而上的士兵的墓冢。

Overawed by the strangeness of it all, and remembering now the old legends, Iluac lost his courage for the first time, and quitted the chamber without delay. Nowhere could he find the black fox; and abandoning the chase, he returned southward, reaching the lands below the glacier without mishap. But he swore later that the ice had changed in a weird mannerwhile he was following the fox, so that he was unsure of his direction for a while after leaving the cavern. There were steep ridges and hummocks where none had been before, making his return a toilsome journey; and the glaciation seemed to extend itself for many miles beyond its former limits. And because of these things, which he could not explain or understand, a curious eery fear was born in the heart of Iluac.

伊路雅克被这一切的奇异之物所震慑，此刻又记起了那些古老的传说。他首次地失去了勇气，毫不迟疑地离开了密室。黑狐已无处可寻，他放弃了追猎，南返，顺利到达了冰川下的土地。但他后来发誓，冰原在他跟踪那只狐狸时以一种诡异的方式发生了变化，以至他在离开洞穴后好一段时间里对方位都不甚肯定。如今陡峭的山脊与圆丘耸立在先前乌有之地，使他的归途甚是劳苦。冰川也似乎越过了它以往的界限，自行扩张了许多英里。正因为这些他无法解释或理解之事，一种稀奇而怪诞的恐惧在伊路雅克的心中诞生。

Never again did he go back upon the glacier; but he told his brother Quanga of that which he had found, and described the location of the cavern-chamber in which King Haalor and Ommum-Vog and their men-at-arms were entombed. And soon after this, Iluac was killed by a white bear on which he had used all his arrows in vain.

他再也没有回到过冰川上。但他将他的发现告知他的弟弟匡加，并描述出了国王哈洛、奥蒙姆·沃格与其随行士兵的葬身洞室之位置。而在不久之后，伊路雅克便被一头白熊杀死——他向它射光了所有的箭矢，却仍是徒劳。

Quanga was no less brave than Iluac; and he did not fear the glacier, since he had been upon it many times and had noticed nothing untoward. His was a heart that lusted after gain, and often he thought of the rubies of Haalor, locked with the king in eternal ice; and it seemed to him that a bold man might recover the rubies.

匡加的勇敢不下于伊鲁雅克，也并不畏惧于冰川，因他已多次踏上冰川却未曾遇上值得重视的逆境。他便有着一颗追财逐利之心，时常觊觎着那些与国王哈洛一同被封入永冻寒冰的红宝石。在他看来，一位悍勇之人便可能寻回它们。

So, one summer, while trading in Iqqua with his furs, he went to the jewelers Eibur Tsanth and Hoom Feethos, taking with him a few garnets that he had found in a northern valley. While the jewelers were appraising the garnets, he spoke idly of the rubies of Haalor, and inquired craftily as to their value. Then, hearing the great worth of the gems, and noting the greedy interest that was shown by Hoom Feethos and Eibur Tsanth, he told them the tale he had heard from his brother Iluac, and offered, if they would promise him half the value of the rubies, to guide them to the hidden cave.

于是在一个夏天，当他在伊克夸做皮毛交易时，他带着几颗在北部峡谷取得的石榴石，去拜访了珠宝商埃布尔·赞思与胡姆·菲索斯。在珠宝商评估着宝石之际，他漫不经心地谈到了哈洛的红宝石，并狡猾地探询着它们的价值。在打听到宝石的连城价值与注意到两人贪婪地展现出巨大兴趣之后，他告诉了他们那得知于长兄伊路雅克的故事，并提议让他指引他们到达那个隐蔽的洞窟——只要他们能承诺分予他等价于半数红宝石的财富。

The jewelers agreed to this proposition, in spite of the hardships of the proposed journey, and the difficulty they might afterward encounter in disposing surreptitiously of gems that belonged to the royal family of Iqqua and would be claimed by the present king, Ralour, if their discovery were learned. The fabulous worth of the rubies had fired their avarice. Quanga, on his part, desired the complicity and connivance of the dealers, knowing that it would be hard for him to sell the jewels otherwise. He did not trust Hoom Feethos and Eibur Tsanth, and it was for this reason that he required them to go with him to the cavern and pay over to him the agreed sum of money as soon as they were in possession of the treasure.

尽管计划中的旅程困难重重，也不顾之后在秘密处置这些皇家财宝时会遇到的棘手问题——若他们的发现被知悉，兴许会被现任伊克夸国王拉罗（Ralour）所宣认，珠宝商们同意了这提议。这些红宝石的惊天高价激发了他们的贪婪。对匡加而言，他需要的是与经销商的共谋关系以及他们的默许，否则他将难以将这些珠宝转手。他并不信任胡姆·菲索斯和埃布尔·赞思，也正因如此他才要求他们与之同往洞窟，并在他们能占有宝藏之际便尽快将约定的金额清付。

The strange trio had set forth in mid-summer. Now, after two weeks of journeying through a wild, sub-arctic region, they were approaching the confines of the eternal ice. They travelled on foot, and their supplies were carried by three horses little larger than musk-oxen. Quanga, an unerring marksman, hunted for their daily food the hares and waterfowl of the country.

这个奇怪的三人组在仲夏出发。此时，在荒蛮的亚北极地区旅行两周之后，他们已临近永恒之冰的边界。他们徒步前行，补给品由三匹比麝牛稍大一点的马驮着。匡加是一位箭无虚发的神射手，每天都狩猎郊野的野兔和水鸟以作膳食。

Behind them, in a cloudless turquoise heaven, there burned the low sun that was said to have described a loftier ecliptic in former ages. Drifts of unmelting snow were heaped in the shadows of the higher hills; and in steep valleys they came upon the vanward glaciers of the ice-sheet. The trees and shrubs were already sparse and stunted, in a land where rich forests had flourished in olden time beneath a milder climate. But poppies flamed in the meadows and along the slopes, spreading their frail beauty like a scarlet rug before the feet of perennial winter; and the quiet pools and stagnant-flowing streams were lined with white water-lilies.

在他们身后，万里无云的碧蓝色天空中，燃烧着一轮低垂的太阳。据说在以往的年岁里，太阳会在更高的黄道上环行。未融之雪堆积在更高峰峦的山影下，而在陡峭的峡谷中，他们遇见了冰原前沿的冰川。如今，在这片曾经有过丰沃森林繁茂生长的温和之地上，树灌都已变得稀少而萎小。但罂粟花仍在草地上绽艳，并如同长冬足下的猩红华毯，沿着山坡铺展它们脆弱的美。还有洁白的睡莲，铺衬于平静的水池与滞流的河溪上。

A little to the east, they saw the fuming of volcanic peaks that still resisted the inroads of the glaciers. On the west were high, gaunt mountains whose sheer cliffs and pinnacles were topped with snow, and around those nether slopes the ice had climbed like an inundating sea. Before them was the looming, crenelated wall ofthe realm-wide glaciation, moving equally on plain and hill, uprooting the trees, and pressing the soil forward in vast folds and ridges. Its progress had been stayed a little by the northern summer. Quanga and the jewelers, as they went on, came to turbid rills, made by a temporary melting, that issued from beneath the glittering blue-green ramparts.

在不远的东边，他们看到了仍在抵抗着冰川侵袭的火山冒出着浓烟。在西边是高耸嶙峋的山峦，峭崖和尖峰的顶端都覆满皑雪，环绕在下方陡坡的则是像泛滥的怒海般攀附着的冰霜。而在它们之前的，则是封锁了全境的寒冰雉堞，无差别地向平原和山丘步步迫近着，将树木连根拔起，将土地推挤成庞然的岩褶和隆脊。在匡加和珠宝商们继续前进时，冰蚀的进程已被北方的夏季稍作延缓。他们来到了从那座闪闪发光的蓝绿色壁垒底部流出的小河，它因暂时的融冰而变得迷雾氤氲。

They left their pack-horses in a grassy valley, tethered by long cords of elf-thong to the dwarfish willows. Then, carrying such provisions and other equipment as they might require for a two days' journey, they climbed the ice-slope at a point selected by Quanga as being most readily accessible, and started in the direction of the cave that had been found by Iluac. Quanga took his bearings from the position of the volcanic mountains, and also from two isolated peaks that rose on the sheeted plain to the north like the breasts of a giantess beneath her shining armor.

他们把驮马留在一个青草遍地的山谷，用皮制长绳拴在一些矮小的柳树上。随后，他们携带上应对于两日旅途的食物和其它装备，在一个由匡加选定的最容易行进之处攀上冰盖，开始向着伊路雅克发现的洞穴方向出发。

The three were well equipped for all the exigencies of their search. Quanga carried a curious pick-ax of finely tempered bronze, to be used in disentombing the body of King Haalor; and he was armed with a short, leaf-shaped sword, in addition to his bow and quiver of arrows. His garments were made from the fur of a giant bear, brown-black in color.

三人装备齐全，足以应付搜索中的所有紧急情况。匡加随身携带一把奇特而精良的回火青铜镐，用以盗掘哈洛国王被冰封的遗体。除了弓箭和箭筒外，他还武装了一把叶形短剑。他的衣装则由一头巨熊的皮毛制成，呈棕黑色。

Hoom Feethos and Eibur Tsanth, in raiment heavily quilted with eider-down against the cold, followed him complainingly but with avaricious eagerness. They had not enjoyed the long marches through a desolate, bleakening land, nor the rough fare and exposure to the northern elements. Moreover, they had taken a dislike to Quanga, whom they considered rude and overbearing. Their grievances were aggravated by the fact that he was now compelling them to carry most of the supplies in addition to the two heavy bags. of gold which they were to exchange later for the gems. Nothing less valuable than the rubies of Haalor would have induced them to come so far, or to set foot on the formidable wastes of the ice-sheet.

胡姆·菲索斯和埃布尔·赞思披裹着厚重的羽绒服以御寒，抱怨连天却又以一种贪得无厌的热忱紧跟着匡加。他们并不享受这场穿越荒寒之地的长途跋涉，亦不钟情那简陋的餐食和所置身的北地风光。此外，他们也不喜欢匡加，认为他粗鲁而专横。如今，匡加强迫他们背负着两个沉重的大袋——里面装满之后用以交换宝石的黄金，还要载运大多数的补给，使他们的不满进一步加剧着。没有什么比得上哈洛的红宝石珍贵，此外也再无任何次等之物能诱使他们踏上这片可畏的冰覆荒原。

The scene before them was like some frozen world of the outer void. Vast, unbroken, save for a few scattered mounds and ridges, the plain extended to the white horizon and its armored peaks. Nothing seemed to live or move on the awful, glistening vistas, whose nearer levels were swept clean of snow. The sun appeared to grow pale and chill, and to recede behind the adventurers; and a wind blew upon them from the ice, like a breath from abysses beyond the pole. Apart from the boreal desolation and drearness, however, there was nothing to dismay Quanga or his companions. None of them was superstitious, and they deemed that the old tales were idle myths, were no more than fear-born delusions. Quanga smiled commiseratively at the thought of his brother Iluac, who had been so oddly frightened and had fancied such extraordinary things after the finding of Haalor. It was a singular weakness in Iluac, the rash and almost foolhardy hunter who had feared neither man nor beast. As to the trapping of Haalor and Ommum-Vog and their army in the glacier, it was plain that they had allowed themselves to be overtaken by the winter storms; and the few survivors, mentally unhinged by their hardships, had told a wild story. Ice — even though it had conquered half of a continent — was merely ice, and its workings conformed invariably to certain natural laws. Iluac had said that the ice-sheet was a great demon, cruel, greedy, and loth to give up that which it had taken. But such beliefs were crude and primitive superstitions, not to be entertained by enlightened minds of the Pieistocene age.

他们眼前的景象就像是天外虚空的某个冰冻世界。除了散布着少量零落的山丘和山脊，广阔的平原可谓连绵，一直延伸至苍白的地平线和那些披挂冰雪铠甲的山峰。 远眺望去，在那白茫茫的骇人光景里似乎没有半点生机，而近处的地平面则像是被扫除过般不染一丝雪花。太阳愈发显得发白、冷却，逐渐退落到冒险者们的身后。一阵凛风从冰原向他们奔袭，仿佛是地极以外的深渊之吐息。然而，除了北地常见的荒凉和凄寂外，也别无他者会使匡加一行人灰心了。他们皆非迷信之徒，认为那些古老的传闻只是夸夸其谈的缪见，不过是由恐惧而生的幻觉。匡加同情地对其兄伊路雅克的看法置之一笑——他竟在发现哈洛后，反常地被惊吓出了如此离奇的臆想。对于伊路雅克这样一个不惧任何人或猛兽、鲁莽到近乎愚勇的猎手来说，在此事上的懦弱实在是怪异非凡。至于哈洛、奥蒙姆·沃格及其军队的身陷囹圄，纯粹是因为他们任由自己被隆冬的暴风雪所追上罢了。还有那少数的幸存者，也不过是被苦难折磨到精神错乱，然后讲了一个疯狂的故事。即使寒冰已经征服了半个大陆，但冰也只是冰，它始终是严格依照某些自然法则运作的。伊路雅克曾说过这冰原是一个残酷、贪婪的大恶魔，拒绝放弃它所占有的一切。但这样的观念都是粗拙且原始的迷信，不会被新世代的开明之心所接受。

They had climbed the rampart at an early hour of morning. Quanga assured the jewelers that they would reach the cavern by noon at the latest, even if there should be a certain amount of difficulty and delay in locating it.

他们在清晨就已爬上壁垒。匡加向珠宝商们保证他们最晚会在中午前到达那个洞窟，尽管在定位它时会有一定的困难和耽搁。

The plain before them was remarkably free of crevasses, and there was little to obstruct their advance. Steering their way with the two breast-shaped mountains for landmarks before them, they come after three hours to a hill-like elevation that corresponded to the mound of Iluac's story. With little trouble, they found the opening of the deep chamber.

他们面前的平原不同寻常地没有任何裂隙，没什么能阻碍他们前进的东西。他们以前方的两座胸形山丘作地标来为自己引路，在两三个小时后来到一处类似山丘的高地，符合伊路雅克故事中的那个大型山墩。不费吹灰之力地，他们便找到了那个深邃洞室的入口。

It seemed that the place had changed little if at all since the visit of Iluac, for the interior, with its columns and pendant icicles, conformed closely to his description. The entrance was like a fanged maw. Within, the floor sloped downward at a slippery angle for more than a hundred feet. The chamber swam with a cold and glaucous translucency that filtered through the dome-like roof. At the lower end, in the striated wall, Quanga and the jewelers saw the embedded shapes of a number of men, among which they distinguished easily the tall, blue-clad corpse of King Haalor and the dark, bowed mummy of Ommum-Vog. Behind these, the shapes of others, lifting their serried spears eternally, and receding downward in stiff ranks through unfathomable depths, were faintly discernible.

洞穴似乎自伊路雅克的到访以来便没有发生丝毫变化，因为它内部的事物，包括那些石柱和垂冰，都紧密地贴合了他的描述。洞穴的入口像是一张嵌着利牙的大嘴，而里处的地面急剧地向下倾斜了超过百尺。一种清冷而半透明的蓝绿色光影从穹顶渗入，浮动在洞室中。在低处的末端， 匡加和珠宝商们看见了在条纹状冰墙中嵌着许多人类的身影，还轻易地在其中辨认出了国王哈洛那颀长的蓝装遗骸和奥蒙姆·沃格那伛偻的黑衣瘪尸。在两者后方，士兵们永恒地高举着他们的长矛，而他们僵硬的队列则向着下方深不可测的渊底延伸，逐渐隐约难见。

Haalor stood regal and erect, with wide-open eyes that stared haughtily as in life. Upon his bosom the triangle of hot and blood-bright rubies smouldered unquenchably in the glacial gloom; and the colder eyes of topazes, of beryls, of diamonds, of chrysolites, gleamed and twinkled from his azure raiment. It seemed that the fabulous gems were separated by no more than a foot or two of ice from the greedy fingers of the hunter and his companions.

哈洛庄严而坚挺地伫立着，双目如同还活着般傲慢地圆瞪。他胸襟上那些三角排列、鲜艳明亮的血红宝石在冰冷的幽暗中阴燃着，永不熄灭。而黄晶、绿玉、宝钻、橄榄石则在他的蔚蓝色衣装上闪烁出更为冰冷的目光，仿佛这些华美绝伦的宝石与猎人及其同伴们那蠢蠢欲动的手指之间只隔着一两英尺厚的冰层。

Without speaking, they stared raptly at the far-sought treasure. Apart from the great rubies, the jewelers were also estimating the value of the other gems worn by Haalor. These alone, they thought complacently, would have made it worth while to endure the fatigue of the journey and the insolence of Quanga.

他们一言不发，目不转睛地盯着这些漫路以求的宝藏。除了硕大的红宝石之外，珠宝商们也在评估着哈洛所佩饰的其它珍石的价值。他们沾沾自喜地心想，就单凭这些，就已使他们在一路上的疲惫及对匡加之无礼的忍受都颇为值得。

The hunter, on his part, was wishing that he had driven an even steeper bargain. The two bags of gold, however, would make him a wealthy man. He could drink to his full content the costly wines, redder than the rubies, that came from far Uzuldaroum in the south. The tawny, slant-eyed girls of Iqqua would dance at his bidding; and he could gamble for high stakes.

猎人则是希望着当时能争取谈到更多的分成。不过，这两袋黄金也会让他成为富翁。他可以尽情饱饮从南方的乌祖尔达鲁姆（Uzuldaroum）远道而来、红胜宝石的名贵葡萄酒。伊克夸斜目茶瞳的姑娘们会在他的示意下翩翩起舞。他还可以不顾风险地激情豪赌。

All three were unmindful of the eeriness of their situation, alone in that boreal solitude with the frozen dead; and they were oblivious likewise to the ghoulish nature of the robbery they were about to commit. Without waiting to be urged by his companions, Quanga raised the keen and highly tempered pick of bronze, and began to assail the translucent wall with mighty blows.

三人都无心去留意他们处境之阴森——他们正零落地在极北的孤绝之地中与冰冻死尸共处。很显然，他们同样也没有意识到将要进行的劫掠在本质上是多么令人毛骨悚然。不等同伴们催促，匡加就举起了锋利的回火青铜镐，开始对那半透明的冰墙发起猛烈的攻击。

The ice rang shrilly beneath the pick, and dropped away in crystal splinters and diamond lumps. In a few minutes, he had made a large cavity; and only a thin shell, cracked and shattering, remained before the body of Haalor. This shell Quanga proceeded to pry off with great care; and soon the triangle of monstrous rubies, more or less encrusted still with clinging ice, lay bare to his fingers. While the proud, bleak eyes of Haalor stared immovably upon him from behind their glassy mask, the hunter dropped the pick, and drawing his sharp, leaf-shaped sword from its scabbard, he began to sever the fine silver wires by which the rubies were attached cunningly to the king's raiment. In his haste he ripped away portions of the sea-blue fabric, baring the frozen and dead-white flesh beneath. One by one, as he removed the rubies, he gave them to Hoom Feethos, standing close behind him; and the dealer, bright-eyed with avarice, drooling a little with ecstasy, stored them carefully in a huge pouch of mottled lizard-skin that he had brought along for the purpose.

寒冰在镐子的敲击下发出尖锐的回响，并裂作晶莹的碎片和钻石般的菱块，不断掉落着。不出几分钟，他已凿出一个大洞，哈洛的遗体前只剩下一层破裂欲碎的薄弱冰壳。匡加小心翼翼地撬开这层冰壳，不出少顷，这个或多或少还有凝冰附着的硕大红宝石三角徽饰，便已被无所阻隔地把握在了他的指间。在哈洛那双骄傲而阴郁的眼睛从玻璃似的寒冰面罩后静滞地盯在他身上时，猎人丢下了铜镐并从鞘中抽出那把锋利的叶形剑，着手切割那些将红宝石巧妙地缝接在国王衣装上的精细银线。在匆忙间，他撕裂了部分的海蓝色衣布，袒露出下方被冻结的死白色肌肤。一颗接着一颗，在他摘下红宝石后，便立即交予紧紧站在身后的胡姆·菲索斯。而这位眼中闪烁着贪婪之色的珠宝商，狂喜忘形地微微流着口水，小心地将它们储进那个一路携来只为此用的蜥蜴斑皮大袋中。

The last ruby had been secured, and Quanga was about to turn his attention to the lesser jewels that adorned the king's garments in curious patterns and signs of astrological or hieratic significance. Then, amid their preoccupation, he and Hoom Feethos were startled by a loud and splintering crash that ended with myriad tinklings as of broken glass. Turning, they saw that a huge icicle had fallen from the cavern-dome; and its point, as if aimed unerringly, had cloven the skull of Eibur Tsanth, who lay amid the debris of shattered ice with the sharp end of the fragment deeply embedded in his oozing brain. He had died, instantly, without knowledge of his doom.

最后的一枚红宝石也已被摘下。匡加正要将注意力转向点缀在国王长袍上的次等珠宝——它们以占星或祭祀意义的珍奇图案与符号排列着。就在他们入神之时，他和胡姆·菲索斯就被一声轰然崩离的撞击声所惊醒，紧接着便是如同玻璃破裂的无数碎响。他们转身，只见一根硕大的垂冰从洞顶坠下来，而冰柱的尖端犹如瞄准过一般，精确无误地劈开了埃布尔·赞思的头颅。他躺在冰屑残骸中，碎片的尖锋深深地嵌入他渗漏的脑浆里。他当场毙命，对自己的厄运一无所知。

The accident, it seemed, was a perfectly natural one, such as might occur in summer from a slight melting of the immense pendant; but, amid their consternation, Quanga and Hoom Feethos were compelled to take note of certain circumstances that were far from normal or explicable. During the removal of the rubies, on which their attention had been centered so exclusively, the chamber had narrowed to half of its former width, and had also closed down from above, till the hanging icicles were almost upon them, like the champing teeth of some tremendous mouth. The place had darkened, and the light was such as might filter into arctic seas beneath heavy floes. The incline of the cave had grown steeper, as if it were pitching into bottomless depths. Far up -- incredibly far — the two men beheld the tiny entrance, which seemed no bigger than the mouth of a fox's hole.

这看起来完全就是一场自然的意外，比如巨大的悬冰在夏季稍作融化便会引发此事。但在惊愕之余，匡加和胡姆·菲索斯不得不注意到一些远超寻常或无法解释的详情。在摘取红宝石的过程中，他们的注意力一直集中在红宝石上。也在此时，密室变窄至只剩原来宽度的一半，而且还由上至下地闭合着，直到悬挂的冰柱几乎压到他们身上，俨然一张巨口中的獠牙。空间变得昏暗，光线就像是被北极海域中的厚实浮冰所截滤过一般。洞内的斜坡愈发陡峭，仿佛要扎进无底的深渊。在远得似乎不可思议之远处，两人看见了一个小小的入口，它看上去并不比狐狸洞的洞口更大。

For an instant, they were stupefied. The changes of the cavern could admit of no natural explanation; and the Hyperboreans felt the clammy surge of all the superstitious terrors that they had formerly disclaimed. No longer could they deny the conscious, animate malevolence, the diabolic powers of bale imputed to the ice in old legends.

一瞬间，他们惊呆了。洞穴里的变化无法用自然来解释。这两位终北之民感到他们以往拒绝承认的所有迷信之恐怖都在此刻汹涌而来。他们再也无法否认那股在古老的传说中被归咎于寒冰的恶意，那股拥有意识、生命与恶魔般力量的恶意。

Realizing their peril, and spurred by a wild panic, they started to climb the incline. Hoom Feethos retained the bulging pouch of rubies, as well as the heavy bag of gold coins that hung from his girdle; and Quanga had enough presence of mind to keep his sword and pick-ax. In their terror-driven haste, however, both forgot the second bag of gold, which lay beside Eibur Tsanth, under the debris of the shattered pendant.

意识到所面临的危险，他们被一种疯长的恐慌催促着，开始爬坡。胡姆·菲索斯仍持留着那袋鼓鼓囊囊的红宝石，以及腰带上挂着的一袋沉甸甸的金币。昆加则有足够的理智，没落下他的剑和镐。然而，在恐惧驱使下的仓促中，两人都忘了第二袋金币，它就被搁置在埃布尔·赞思身旁，被压在垂冰的破碎残骸下。

The supernatural narrowing of the cave, the dreadful and sinister closing-down of its roof, had apparently ceased. At any rate, the Hyperboreans could detect no visible continuation of the process as they climbed frantically and precariously toward the opening. They were forced to stoop in many places to avoid the mighty fangs that threatened to descend upon them; and even with the rough tigerskin buskins that they wore, it was hard to keep their footing on the terrible slope. Sometimes they pulled themselves up by means of the slippery, pillar-like formations; and often Quanga, who led the way, was compelled to hew hasty steps in the incline with his pick.

无论是洞穴那超自然的缩窄，还是洞顶那骇人险恶的下拢，似乎都已停息。不管怎样，在两位终北之民手忙脚乱、摇摇欲坠地向入口攀去的过程中，他们都再未察觉到有延续的超自然现象。在许多地方，他们被迫弯腰以避免头上的寒冰巨牙降灾其身。而且，即使他们穿着粗糙不平的虎皮中筒靴，要在这种可怕的斜坡上立足依旧是困难的。有时，他们得抓着某些湿滑的柱状物才能把自己拉上去。领路的匡加也不得不频繁地使用锄镐在斜坡上凿出临时的台阶。

Hoom Feethos was too terrified for even the most rudimentary reflection. But Quanga, as he climbed, was considering the monstrous alterations of the cave, which he could not aline with his wide and various experience of the phenomena of nature. He tried to convince himself that he had made a singular error in estimating the chamber's dimensions and the inclination of its fioor. The effort was useless: he still found himself confronted by a thing that outraged his reason; a thing that distorted the known face of the world with unearthly, hideous madness, and mingled a malign chaos with its ordered workings.

胡姆·菲索斯过于惊恐，连最基本的思想都无法进行。而匡加在攀行的同时思索着洞穴的骇人剧变，那与他丰广的经验中的任何自然现象都不相匹配。他试图让自己信服是他阴差阳错地误判了洞室的大小和地面的斜度。但这种努力是徒劳的：他仍须面对一件践踏着他的理智之事物——它以诡异可憎的疯狂扭曲着对世界的已知面，并将一种邪恶的混沌掺杂进世界那有序的运转中。

After an ascent that was frightfully prolonged, like the effort to escape from some delirious, tedious nightmare predicament, they neared the cavern-mouth. There was barely room now for a man to creep on his belly beneath the sharp and ponderous teeth. Quanga, feeling that the fangs might close upon him like those of some great monster, hurled himself forward and started to wriggle through the opening with a most unheroic celerity. Something held him back, and he thought, for one moment of stark horror, that his worst apprehensions were being realized. Then he found that his bow and quiver of arrows, which he had forgotten to remove from his shoulders, were caught against the pendant ice. While Hoom Feethos gibbered in a frenzy of fear and impatience, he crawled back and relieved himself of the impeding weapons, which he thrust before him together with his pick in a second and more successful attempt to pass through the strait opening.

经历一段可怕而漫长的攀登后，像是从那些瞀乱冗长的梦魇中艰苦逃亡的回报般，他们到达了洞口附近。如今，此处几乎仅剩可供一人在锋利且厚重的冰齿之下匍匐行动的空间。匡加感觉到这些尖牙会如庞然怪兽般向它迫近，便仓皇前进，并以一种最显胆怯的迅急朝洞口蠕行。然而，有些什么东西在妨碍着他，他心中瞬间闪过莫大的恐惧：那最坏的忧虑已成现实。随后，他便发现自己因忘记摘下而仍挂在肩膀上的弓箭被垂冰所卡住。当胡姆·菲索斯在畏惧和急躁的狂乱中喋喋不清时，匡加向后伏退，解下那阻碍着他的武器，旋即将之连同镐子一起猛推到前方，以便成功通过那个狭窄的洞口。

Rising to his feet on the open glacier, he heard a wild cry from Hoom Feethos, who, trying to follow Quanga, had become tightly wedged in the entrance through his greater girth. His right hand, clutching the pouch of rubies, was thrust forward beyond the threshold of the cave. He howled incessantly, with half-coherent protestations that the cruel ice-teeth were crunching him to death.

匡加在开阔的冰川上站起身来，听到胡姆·菲索斯的一声狂叫。他试图跟着匡加出去，却被自己更为宽厚的身躯紧紧楔在洞口，他那紧握着红宝石袋的右手则极力地伸到洞口之外。他不停地哀嚎着，含糊不清地抗议着那残酷的冰牙正将他嚼碎至死的事实。

In spite of the eery terrors that had unmanned him, the hunter still retained enough courage to go back and try to assist Hoom Feethos. He was about to assail the huge icicles with his pick, when he heard an agonizing scream from the jeweler, followed by a harsh and indescribable grating. There had been no visible movement of the fangs — and yet Quanga now saw that they had reached the cavern-floor! The body of Hoom Feethos, pierced through and through by one of the icicles, and ground down by the blunter teeth, was spurting blood on the glacier, like the red mist from a wine-press.

尽管恐惧使他怯懦，但猎人仍然保留了足够的勇气，试图回去帮助胡姆·菲索斯。当他听到珠宝商发出痛苦的尖叫时，他正准备用锄镐猛击巨大的冰柱，紧接着是一阵难以言表的刺耳摩擦声。这些寒冰獠牙没有任何可见的位移，匡加现在却看到它们已然抵到了洞穴的地面！胡姆·菲索斯的身体被其中一根冰锥贯穿，又被更为厚钝的冰齿磨碎，鲜血喷洒在冰川上，就像从葡萄酒榨汁机迸出的红雾。

Quanga doubted the very testimony of his senses. The thing before him was patently impossible — there was no mark of cleavage in the mound above the cavern-mouth, to explain the descent of those awful fangs. Before his very eyes, but too swiftly for direct cognition, this unthinkable enormity had occurred.

匡加怀疑自己的感官。摆在他面前的事实显然是不可能的——洞口上方的土丘没有裂开的痕迹，无法解释那些可怕的冰牙为何会落下。这宗不可思议的暴行，就在他的眼皮底下，以一种超越直接感知的迅速，发生了。

Hoom Feethos was beyond all earthly help, and Quanga, now wholly the slave of a hideous panic, would hardly have stayed longer to assist him in any case. But seeing the pouch that had fallen forward from the dead jeweler's fingers, the hunter snatched it up through an impulse of terror-mingled greed; and then, with no backward glance, he fled on the glacier, toward the low-circling sun.

胡姆·菲索斯已回天乏术，如今，匡加也彻底沦为了那无法承受之惶恐的奴隶，无论如何也不愿多停留半刻来帮助他。但看到从死去的珠宝商手中掉落的皮袋，猎人在恐惧与贪婪交织的冲动将其一把抓起，随即头也不回地踏上冰川，向着低垂的太阳逃去。

For a few moments, as he ran, Quanga failed to perceive the sinister and ill-boding alterations, comparable to those of the cave, whichhad somehow occurred in the sheeted plain itself. With a terrific shock, which became an actual vertigo, he saw that he was climbing a long, insanely tilted slope above whose remote extreme the sun had receded strangely, and was now small and chill as if seen from an outer planet. The very sky was different: though still perfectly cloudless, it had taken on a curious deathly pallor. A brooding sense of inimical volition, a vast and freezing malignity, seemed to pervade the air and to settle upon Quanga like an incubus. But more terrifying than all else, in its proof of a conscious and malign derangement of natural law, was the giddy poleward inclination that had been assumed by the level plateau.

在逃跑的过程中，有那么一会儿，平坦的冰原本身莫名所以地发生了类似于洞穴中那种凶险不祥的变化，而匡加却未能察觉。他骇恐震惊，进而感到一股真切的眩晕。他只见自己正攀登着一条陡峭得荒唐的长坡，而在它那极远的端顶上，太阳离奇地后退着。眼下，太阳显得渺小而冰冷，仿佛是从天外星球上所眺见的那般。而天空也不一样了：尽管仍是万里无云，却呈现出一种诡异的死之苍白。空气中似乎弥漫着一种敌对的意志，一种广漠、寒冷而凝结着的憎恶，如同梦魇般徘徊不去地笼罩着匡加。然而，远比其它的一切更为恐怖的是，作为自然法则那自觉的恶性错乱之证明，这片平坦的高原已天旋地转地向着极点倾斜。

Quanga felt that creation itself had gone mad, and had left him at the mercy of demoniacal forces from the godless outer gulfs. Keeping a perilous foot-hold, weaving and staggering laboriously upward, he feared momently that he would slip and fall and slide back for ever into arctic depths unfathomable. And yet, when he dared to pause at last, and turned shudderingly to peer down at the supposed descent, he saw behind him an acclivity similar in all respects to the one he was climbing: a mad,oblique wall of ice, that rose interminably to a second remote sun.

匡加顿感造化的本身已是癫狂，并将他遗弃给了邪恶的力量，任由无神的外界深渊之来者支配他。他艰难地稳步在危险的立足处，踉跄而蹒跚地向上攀行，并时刻惧怕着他会跌倒滑落至深不可测的极地深渊之中。然而，在他终于敢停下脚步的时候，他战栗着转过头，打算俯视那预想中的坠落之地，却看见在他身后的是一个上斜坡，其任何一个坡面皆与他正攀爬着的坡面全然一致。那是一堵陡得不可理喻的冰墙，它无限地崛升着，直达另一个遥远的太阳。

In the confusion of that strange bouleversement, he seemed to lose the last remnant of equilibrium; and the glacier reeled and pitched about him like an overturning world as he strove to recover the sense of direction that had never before deserted him. Everywhere, it appeared, there were small and wan parhelia that mocked him above unending glacial scarps. He resumed his hopeless climb through a topsy-turvy world of illusion: whether north, south, east or west, he could not tell.

在那非凡之颠覆带来的慌乱中，他似乎丧失了最后仅剩的平衡。正当他努力着想要寻回那从前未曾离弃过他的方向感，在他周围的冰川却又犹如天地倒转一般翻旋、震颤着。弱小而苍白的幻日，也似乎无处不见地在无际的冰崖上嘲弄着他。在这天翻地覆的幻像世界中，他继续了那无望地攀行。向北？向南？或东或西？他并不知晓。

A sudden wind swept downward on the glacier; it shrieked in Quanga's ears like the myriad voices of taunting devils; it moaned and laughed and ululated with shrill notes as of crackling ice. It seemed to pluck at Quanga with live malicious fingers, to suck the breath for which he had fought agonizingly. In spite of his heavy raiment, and the speed of his toilsome ascent, he felt its bitter, mordant teeth, searching and biting even to the marrow.

一阵突如其来的凛风扫向冰川之下。尖锐的风啸就像魔鬼们的无尽讥诮，在匡加的耳中以冰碎般的不协音符呻吟着，欢笑着，哀嗥着。寒风仿佛在用活生生却充满恶意的手指拔蚀着匡加，抢夺他那艰难吸取的空气。尽管他穿着厚重的衣服，艰苦而急促地攀行着，但他还是感觉到寒风那刺骨的尖牙在搜猎、噬咬着他的全身，深入骨髓。

Dimly, as he continued to climb upward, he saw that the ice was no longer smooth, but had risen into pillars and pyramids around him, or was fretted obscenely into wilder shapes. Immense, malignant profiles leered in blue-green crystal; the malformed heads of bestial devils frowned; and rearing dragons writhed immovably along the scarp, or sank frozen into deep crevasses.

他继续攀升，隐约看见上方的冰面不再光滑，逐渐在他附近伸出无数冰柱和冰锥，又或者被侵蚀成了更为狂放的猥亵形状。淫邪的巨大侧脸在蓝绿色的冰晶中睥睨，魔鬼们畸变的兽首也在蹙额皱眉。无法直立的恶龙寸步难移，只能在峭壁边缘蠕动腾挪，或被冻僵地堕入深不见底的冰川裂隙之中。

Apart from these imaginary forms that were assumed by the ice itself, Quanga saw, or believed that he saw, human bodies and faces embedded in the glacier. Pale hands appeared to reach dimly and imploringly toward him from the depths; and he felt upon him the frost-bound eyes of men who had been lost in former years; and beheld their sunken limbs, grown rigid in strange attitudes of torture.

除了这些由冰雪本身呈现出的虚构形态之外，匡加还看到，或者说他相信自己看到了那些嵌在冰川中的人类躯体和面孔。似乎有苍白的手隐隐约约地从深处哀求着向他伸来；他感觉到已在昔日迷失的人们正用被冰霜冻结的眼睛盯着他；他还看到了他们凹陷的肢体，以怪异而扭曲的姿势构现出一种僵硬。

Quanga was no longer capable of thought. Deaf, blind, primordial terrors, older than reason, had filled his mind with their atavistic darkness. They drove him on implacably, as a beast is driven, and would not let him pause or flag on the mocking, nightmare slope. Reflection would have told him only that his ultimate escape was impossible; that the ice, a live and conscious and maleficent thing, was merely playing a cruel and fantastic game which it had somehow devised in its incredible animism. So, perhaps, it was well that he had lost the power of reflection.

匡加不再具备思考的能力。一种使人耳聋目盲、比人类的理智更为古老的原始恐惧，带着复苏于远祖时代的黑暗，充盈了他的内心。它们无可抵挡地迫使着他，令他如同被驱逐的野兽，不让他在那讥讽着他的噩梦斜坡上停歇或缓步。他内心的声音本该告诉他，这场最后的逃亡只会是徒劳。因为寒冰，这个有生且自觉的邪恶之物，仅仅是在玩着一场残酷而梦幻的游戏，一切也只是它以那难以置信的泛灵理念所设计出的怪诞造物。所以，他丧失了去思考的力量，或许也不失为一件好事。

Beyond hope and without warning, he came to the end of the glaciation. It was like the sudden shift of a dream, which takes the dreamer unaware; and he stared uncomprehendingly for some moments at the familiar Hyperborean valleys below the rampart, to the south, and the volcanoes that fumed darkly beyond the southeastern hills.

没有希望，也毫无征兆地，他到达了冰川的尽头。就像是梦境骤然地切换，而梦者浑然不觉。一时之间，他琢磨不透地盯着在那壁垒之下他所熟悉的终北峡谷。在南边，则有火山群在熏黑着东南山脉的上空。

His flight from the cavern had consumed almost the whole of the long, subpolar afternoon, and the sun was now swinging close above the horizon. The parhelia had vanished, and the ice-sheet, as if by some prodigious legerdemain, had resumed its normal horizontality. If he had been able to compare his impressions, Quanga would have realized that at no time had he surprised the glacier in the accomplishment of its bewildering supernatural changes.

他从洞穴逃出，在极北之地耗费了几乎整个漫长的下午，如今太阳也已摇摇下坠，几近落到了地平线上。幻日不复存在，冰原也仿佛变了一场浩大的戏法般，恢复了它寻常时的平整。如果他还尚有能力去比对自己对此般奇迹的印象，匡加便会意识到，在冰川实现这些令人无所适从的超自然变化中，他从未能察觉到其间的任何一瞬。

Doubtfully, as if it were a mirage that might fade at any moment, he surveyed the landscape below the battlements. To all appearances, he had returned to the very place from which he and the jewelers had begun their disastrous journey on the ice. Before him an easy declivity, fretted and runneled, ran down toward the grassy meadows. Fearing that it was all deceitful and unreal — a fair, beguiling trap, a new treachery of the element that he had grown to regard as a cruel and almighty demon — Quanga descended the slope with hasty leaps and bounds. Even when he stood ankle-deep in the great club-mosses, with leafy willows and sedgy grasses about him, he could not quite believe in the verity of his escape.

匡加疑惑地审视着城垛下的风光，仿佛这是随时都会转瞬即逝的蜃景。从表面看来，他已回到了他与珠宝商们踏上那灾难的冰上之旅的起始之地。在他面前的，正是那条被河溪冲蚀的下行缓坡，通往那片郁郁葱葱的草甸。匡加害怕这一切都只是玄虚与假象，只是又一个天花乱坠的欺诈陷阱，只是一种天地元素的新兴变节，一只逐渐在他眼中化形的恶魔，残忍且强横。他汲汲皇皇，从山坡奔跃而下。即使他已双脚踏入没过脚踝的石松类植丛中，被繁茂的杨柳与莎草围绕着，匡加依然无法确信自己已然逃脱的事实。

The mindless prompting of a panic fear still drove him on; and a primal instinct, equally mindless, drew him toward the volcanic peaks. The instinct told him that he would find refuge from the bitter boreal cold amid their purlieus; and there, if anywhere, he would be safe from the diabolical machinations of the glacier. Boiling springs were said to flow perpetually from the nether slopes of these mountains; great geysers, roaring and hissing like infernal cauldrons, filled the higher gullies with scalding cataracts. The long snows that swept upon Hyperborea were turned to mild rains in the vicinity of the volcanoes; and there a rich and sultry-colored flora, formerly native to the whole region, but now exotic, flourished throughout the seasons.

惶恐仍在盲目地催促着他继续前进。但还有一种同样盲目的原始本能，将他引向火山之巅。这个本能告诉他，他能在附近寻得庇护。若真的存在可以让他躲避北地的刺骨寒冷与冰川的恶毒诡计之处，那便会是此处。据说，那里会有沸腾的泉水从低处的山坡汩汩永流；雄伟的间歇泉咆哮嘶鸣着，犹如炼狱的坩锅，喷涌出滚烫的湍洪，灌涌高地的沟壑。常年在终北之地的席卷蔓延的风雪，在火山的邻近地区化作了细雨；还有丰富多彩、明艳动人的植群。它们曾是遍布全境的本土草木，但如今都已衰亡，成了异国珍奇。但在此地，它们仍于四季繁茂生长。

Quanga could not find the little shaggy horses that he and his companions had left tethered to the dwarf willows in the valley-meadow. Perhaps, after all, it was not the same valley. At any rate, he did not stay his flight to search for them. Without delay or lingering, after one fearful backward look at the menacing mass of the glaciation, he started off in a direct line for the smoke-plumed mountains.

匡加没有找到那三匹他们留在山谷草场、拴在矮小杨柳上的蓬毛小马。或许，这里终究不是先前的那座山谷。总而言之，他没有为了搜寻它们而耽搁自己的行程。在畏惧地回望一眼那些雄大而险恶的冰川后，他便没有半分的拖延和逗留，径直地向着烟雾腾萦的群山出发。

The sun sank lower, skirting endlessly the southwestern horizon, and flooding the battlemented ice and the rolling landscape with a light of pale amethyst. Quanga, with iron thews inured to protracted marches, pressed on in his unremitting terror, and was overtaken gradually by a long, ethereal-tinted twilight of northern summer.

太阳沉得更低，无休地沿着西南方的地平线环行，并向那堵冰墙和绵延起伏的陆地倾泻黯紫色的光。匡加那钢铁般的肌体已经适应了长途的奔行，坚忍着那不止的恐惧继续推进。而北地夏季那漫长而缥缈的暮色，也已逐步降临。

Somehow, through all the stages of his flight, he had retained the pick-ax, as well as his bow and arrows. Automatically, hours before, he had placed the heavy pouch of rubies in the bosomof his raiment for safekeeping. He had forgotten them, and he did not even notice the trickle of water from the melting of crusted ice about the jewels, that seeped upon his flesh from the lizard-skin pouch.

不知何故，在逃亡过程中，他一直都保留着那把锄镐，还有他的弓箭。自然而然，为安全起见，他在数个小时前已将沉重的红宝石皮袋放进了他衣服怀中。他已将它们遗忘，甚至没有注意到依附在珠宝上的碎冰已经融化，水滴从蜥蜴皮袋渗出，沾染在他的皮肉上。

Crossing one of the innumerable valleys, he stumbled against a protruding willow-root, and the pick was hurled from his fingers as he fell. Rising to his feet, he ran on without stopping to retrieve it.

在翻越这些不计其数的山谷中的其中一个时，他被一根突出的杨柳根所绊倒。就在他跌落之际，他的镐子便从指间摔飞出去。他站起身来，继续前进，没有再停下脚步去收回它。

A ruddy glow from the volcanoes was now visible on the darkening sky. It brightened as Quanga went on; and he felt that he was nearing the far-sought, inviolable sanctuary. Though still thoroughly shaken and demoralized by his preterhuman ordeals, he began to think that he might escape from the ice-demon after all.

火山群焕发的红光显现在愈发昏暗的天空中。随着匡加继续前进，火光也明亮了起来。他感到自己已接近那漫道求索的神圣庇护所。尽管他仍因那超凡的严峻考验而战栗和诅丧，他还是开始觉得，也许他终于能从那冰之恶魔的手中逃脱了。

Suddenly he became aware of a consuming thirst, to which he had been oblivious heretofore. Daring to pause in one of the shallow valleys, he drank from a blossom-bordered stream. Then, beneath the crushing load of an unconsciously accumulated fatigue, he flung himself down to rest for a little while among the blood-red poppies that were purple with twilight.

此前他一直对自己的口渴不甚在意，但突然间，他却察觉其难耐无比。他鼓起勇气在其中一个浅谷里停下，从一条边上开满鲜花的溪流中饮水。随后，他便在不知不觉中积累的不堪疲惫下，重重地倒在了因暮光而泛紫的血红罂粟花丛之中，任由自己歇息一会。

Sleep fell like a soft and overwhelming snow upon his eyelids, but was soon broken by evil dreams in which he still fled vainly from the mocking and inexorable glacier. He awoke in a cold horror, sweating and shivering, and found himself staring at the northern sky, where a delicate flush was dying slowly. It seemed to him that a great shadow, malign and massive and somehow solid, was moving upon the horizon and striding over the low hills toward the valley in which he lay. It came with inexpressible speed, and the last light appeared to fall from the heavens, chill as a reflection caught in ice.

睡意像一场柔软的铺天大雪落在他的眼皮上，但很快就被恶梦打破。在梦中，他仍在徒劳地躲避着那嘲弄他的无情冰川。他在寒颤的恐惧中醒来，冷汗狂飙，战栗不止。他发现自己正凝视着北方的天空，那里有一抹微妙的红晕正缓缓褪去。在他看来，似乎有一个巨大的阴影，有如邪恶的实体，它踏在地平线上，跨过相形见小的众山，以难以言喻的速度向他所在的山谷袭来。最后的光芒从天上坠下，寒冷得如同被凝结在冰上的倒映。

He started to his feet with the stiffness of prolonged exhaustion in all his body, and the nightmare stupefaction of slumber still mingling with his half-awakened fears. In this state, with a mad, momentary defiance, he unslung his bow and discharged arrow after arrow, emptying his quiver at the huge and bleak and formless shadow that seemed to impend before him on the sky. Having done this, he resumed his headlong flight.

带着长期疲竭造成的全身僵硬，匡加蓦地站起身来，而噩梦带来的昏沉混进了半醒的恐惧中。在此般状态下，一种疯狂的反抗在他心中燃起。他张弓对着天空中那个似乎正向他迫近的阴影，一箭又一箭地射向那个巨大、阴冷的无形之物。在清空了整个箭袋之后，他便继续仓皇而逃。

Even as he ran, he shivered uncontrollably with the sudden and intense cold that had filled the valley. Vaguely, with an access of fear, he felt that there was something unwholesome and unnatural about the cold — something that did not belong to the place or the season. The glowing volcanoes were quite near, and soon he would reach their outlying hills. The air about him should be temperate, even if not actually warm.

即使是在他奔跑的时候，他依然会因为突如其来的彻骨严寒而不由自主地颤抖，而这种寒冷也已遍及全谷。伴随着恐惧发作，他隐约地感到寒冷中有着某些非自然的不详之物，某些不属于任何空间与时间之物。红光明亮的火山群近在毗邻，他很快便能到达它们外缘的山丘。他周遭的空气理应是温暖的，可实际上却不如此。

All at once, the air darkened before him, with a sourceless, blue-green glimmering in its depths. For a moment, he saw the featureless Shadow that rose gigantically upon his path and obscured the very stars and the glare of the volcanoes. Then, with the swirling of a tempest-driven vapor, it closed about him, gelid and relentless. It was like phantom ice — a thing that blinded his eyes and stifled his breath, as if he were buried in some glacial tomb. It was cold with a transarctic rigor, such as he had never known, that ached unbearably in all his flesh, and was followed by a swiftly spreading numbness.

刹那间，他眼前的空气变得黑暗，在深处隐约闪动着无源的蓝绿色微光。有那么一瞬，他看瞥见了正是那无型的巨大阴影在他的路上升起，遮蔽群星与火山的耀光。然后，它势如风暴，卷起一阵飞旋的蒸汽，向他逼近，冰冷而残酷。它就像是冰之幽魂，蒙蔽了他的双眼，扼制着他的呼吸，使他仿佛被埋葬在冰棺中一般。那是一种他未曾经历过的严寒，他如同置身北极之外，浑身颤栗。他的每一寸肌肤都疼痛难当，随之而来的则是一阵迅速蔓延的麻痹。

Dimly he heard a sound as of clashing icicles, a grinding as of heavy floes, in the blue-green gloom that tightened and thickened around him. It was as if the soul of the glacier, malign and implacable, had overtaken him in his flight. At times he struggled numbly, in half-drowsy terror. With some obscure impulse, as if to propitiate a vengeful deity, he took the pouch of rubies from his bosom with prolonged and painful effort, and tried to hurl it away. The thongs that tied the pouch were loosened by its fall, and Quanga heard faintly, as if from a great distance, the tinkle of the rubies as they rolled and scattered on some hard surface. Then oblivion deepened about him, and he fell forward stiffly, without knowing that he had fallen.

在包围着他那愈发紧密厚重的蓝绿色幽暗之中，他隐约听见有如冰锥撞击的铿锵声，又如坚实的浮冰被碾碎的吱嘎作响。仿佛是那恶毒无情的冰川之灵魂，追上了他逃亡的脚步。他在半昏半睡的恐惧中不时麻木地挣扎着。出于某种晦涩不清的的冲动，他迟缓而痛苦地竭力从胸襟中取出那袋红宝石，似乎试图在安抚某个来复仇的神明一般，将之猛掷出去。用以封绑袋口的皮带在坠落中松开，匡加模糊地听见叮一阵叮当声从远处传来，似乎是红宝石翻滚、散落在某种坚硬的表面上发出的声响。同时，湮灭着周遭一切的幽邃也变得更加深重，他僵硬地向前倒去，全然不知自己业已堕下。

Morning found him beside a little stream, stark-frozen, and lying on his face in a circle of poppies that had been blackened as if by the footprint of some gigantic demon of frost. A nearby pool, formed by the leisurely rill, was covered with thin ice; and on the ice, like gouts of frozen blood, there lay the scattered rubies of Haalor. In its own time, the great glacier, moving slowly and irresistibly southward, would reclaim them.

清晨，在一条小溪旁，他浑身结冰、脸朝下地躺在发黑的罂粟花丛中，仿佛是某种巨大的冰之恶魔所留下的足迹。附近一个由缓流的小溪形成的水潭上，结满了薄冰；而冰面上散落着哈洛的红宝石，如同冰凝的血滴。巨大的冰川仍在缓慢且无可阻挡地向南推移，而在适当的时机，它终会将它们收回。

This post has been edited by CaptainSnafu: 2024-01-27, 13:49