本章概述：

????????????伊莎萊偷聽。

????????????In which Isarae eavesdrops.

?

正文：

這不是我想要的。

“…Attica Tenzen, Orissa Kassiter, Milla Roman…”

我甚至不確定自己到底想要什么。我知道亞歷桑德拉需要衣服，但是人類的容貌對我來說粗笨又古怪，他們用于蔽體的單調(diào)的口袋對我來說都很相似。我曾認(rèn)為她可能會在曾經(jīng)住在這里的女人的私人物品里找到些穿的，但這不是我想要的。

“…Septime Ulyssanna, Mikasa Maer, Zenova Thrace.”

我倚靠在門上嘆了口氣，在胸前環(huán)抱起雙手聽著她吟誦著死者的名字。也許在她在這些房間里閑逛時裝睡是個錯誤，只要她被我的存在分散注意力，她就不會想到來到這個世界時所發(fā)生的事。

她朗讀出的每一個名字都帶著一陣痛苦的靈能回響，它們激起的柏油般的病態(tài)的波浪讓我?guī)缀鯚o法忍受。我從來都想不到痛苦的風(fēng)味嘗起來會是糟糕的，最差它可能沒有任何味道，可亞歷桑德拉的痛苦呢？

我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己完全不喜歡這樣。

她的嗓音在第九個名字上微弱了下來，她安靜了片刻才重新念誦起來。

“帝皇呵，人類之尊主，請記下這些名字，帶她們歸于榮耀，”亞歷桑德拉的聲音緊繃著，我能聽到其中含著淚水?！霸肝业慕忝脗冊趯θ祟愔?dāng)车挠篮銘?zhàn)爭中戰(zhàn)斗于您的身側(cè)，愿……愿她們能注視著我，直至我們再度于您的右手邊并肩?！?/p>

不確定性并非我所習(xí)慣的事物。

她所感受到的痛苦，我沒有任何辦法緩解，我沒法許給她任何東西來解下她肩上源于自己的茍活的枷鎖。

“當(dāng)她大限將至，盡管這并非您的領(lǐng)域，我懇求您，無錯者呵，向這沉淪的世界伸出您的手——”

我僵住了，一股寒意在亞歷桑德拉繼續(xù)向她的尸皇祈禱時竄上了我的脊柱。

“——籍此帶艾達(dá)靈族的伊莎萊的異形靈魂遠(yuǎn)離黑暗諸神之饑渴，因她展示給我仁慈和好意，因她對我的善意，我愿懇求您，神圣泰拉上的神皇，向她伸展您無限慈悲的至微一觸。”

她在為她的姐妹們……也為我祈禱。

“Ave Imperator ad Domine Aeternum（致以永恒之主）.”

我用力地吞咽著，亞歷桑德拉結(jié)束祈禱時，一種怪異的疼痛占據(jù)了我的胸膛。聽到他們中一個基因強化的狂信徒在動力劍回砍時對我吼出的仇恨呼喊是一回事，可聽到為我的靈魂祈求保護(hù)和赦免則完全是另一回事。

“我不需要赦免，”我輕聲說，“面紗之外沒有光明，只有黑暗在饑腸轆轆?！?/p>

一個晝夜悄然無聲地流逝，除了獸人們找到什么新的能炸飛的東西時在遠(yuǎn)方稀稀拉拉的引爆。我本該做點有建設(shè)性的事，一些有用或最起碼讓我接近我的目標(biāo)的事。我本是來到這個世界尋死的，而我出于講不清道不明的原因愈發(fā)地不專注于此。

亞歷桑德拉正讓我分心，這很明顯，可是為什么？

她為什么讓我分心地如此徹底？為什么每次我即將棄她而去時都感到腹中一陣疼痛？

我站在之前一直倚靠在門上的地方，感覺像是，實際上可能是，幾個小時。

夜幕降臨，行星周期快速退進(jìn)著，我一路走進(jìn)客廳，目光跨過陽臺。

人類城市是如此的丑陋。

至少科摩羅優(yōu)雅的刀片狀尖頂是被精妙地設(shè)計并放置的。這里的尖塔像攜帶致命病菌的長矛般直插云霄，用它們飽經(jīng)風(fēng)霜的身軀染黑了天穹，它們似乎是被隨意的擠在一起，在這個短視的種族由于看到了對空間的需求而絲毫不考慮它們會通向哪里的地方拔地而起。

一陣微弱的鈴聲把我的注意力吸引到了噴氣摩托上，我瞇起了眼睛。只有被動感應(yīng)陣列仍在活躍，而在這脆弱的世界上沒有什么能激發(fā)它的東西。

“只能是網(wǎng)道傳送門，”我呼出一口氣，咒罵著穿過房間，扯下摩托上的防水布，開始循環(huán)能量電池。

這花了我一點時間，但在我能做到時我就進(jìn)行了窄帶主動掃描，瞄準(zhǔn)了我現(xiàn)身的山丘。

信號很微弱，但它的確在那里。

有什么東西最近從網(wǎng)道里出來了。

“劫掠者？”我對此沉思了一會兒?！安弧瓫]有黑暗靈族會想來這里，沒有執(zhí)政官會浪費他們的資源在獸人窩里獵殺一個瘋了的魅魔，”我對于自己瘋了的想法報以輕笑，并推斷這也許比沒有更真實。“那么是我的方舟世界胞親？可為什么？”

方舟靈族是群被可憎地約束著的家伙，但直到為時已晚為止總是很難預(yù)測為什么他們會出現(xiàn)在某處。他們的先知讓他們穿越已知星系的縱深，以或這樣或那樣的方式出于各種原因扭曲命運的線束，所以我猜測這里一定有什么符合那種描述。

“讓他們冒險用如此接近黑暗之城的大門可真夠悲哀的，”我笑著關(guān)掉了噴氣摩托。說到底，沒必要引起他們的注意。

這應(yīng)該不是方舟靈族第一次介入某場看似毫無意義的人類戰(zhàn)爭，應(yīng)該只是我運氣不好找上了一個他們感興趣的。我不想死于我那群自視甚高的表親之手，那種死法讓我很不舒服。

我嘆了口氣，倚在摩托的座位上思考起自己的選項。他們不可能注意不到一個肆無忌憚地屠殺獸人的巫靈，即便是在戰(zhàn)爭中，那意味著在確定他們離開前我得推遲自己的計劃。

出于某種原因，這并不像它本應(yīng)該的那樣令我惱火。

“不過，我最終還是要調(diào)查一下這個，”我喃喃著再次把帆布罩上噴氣摩托。

我得安裝一個傳感器，以此獲知他們什么時候離開這個潰爛的城市，不然只能靠猜，而我討厭猜測。

不過現(xiàn)在不行……晚點吧?，F(xiàn)在他們應(yīng)該會設(shè)立一個前哨站來運作，不會離大門很近，但會近到足以監(jiān)控它。畢竟，他們可不想要一整支黑暗靈族突襲小隊出現(xiàn)在他們撲粉的屁股上。

幸運的是，在這段時間里我有別的可分心的事物。

我回到臥室，安靜地打開門，只最低限度地用指關(guān)節(jié)輕敲門檻預(yù)示我的進(jìn)入。

亞歷桑德拉在酣睡中，如我所推測的那樣。而我沒有想到的，是她睡覺時穿著的東西。

那是一件連衣裙，顯然是給比她更矮更瘦的人穿的，因為它落到了她的小腿中部而非它似乎本該落到的腳踝。

亞歷桑德拉有著非常人類的曲線，寬闊的臀部，強壯的雙腿，和幾個晝夜以來撐起另一具身體的重量的動力甲的寬闊肩膀。她的手臂有著必要時能盡全力支撐起爆彈槍全自動射擊所需的輪廓和力量，但她的肌肉透著昭示她的青春的柔和。

我不知為何，但我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己像她在我們沐浴時盯著我那么久一樣盯著她。我之前一直沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)她的身體幾乎如此吸引人。情感上，是的……我一直試著辨認(rèn)她的味道，可我現(xiàn)在感受到的是完全形體上的。

過小的裙子包裹著她的身形，和她在胸前抱著枕頭蜷縮著沉睡的樣子讓人很難把她和那個一邊沖向獸人老大一邊怒吼著用爆彈槍開火的女戰(zhàn)士相提并論。她看起來……很脆弱，不只是某種我能殺死的事物，而是別的什么。是某種照亮我內(nèi)心深處超過一千年都沒感受過的地方的事物。

我……想要保護(hù)她。

亞歷桑德拉輕哼了一聲，我?guī)缀醣贿@突如其來的聲音嚇得蹦起來。這聲音很尖銳，像是痛苦的吶喊，剎那間我的手在剃刀連枷的刀柄上握得發(fā)白。

“這就是為什么，”當(dāng)我意識到這一點并進(jìn)入戰(zhàn)斗姿態(tài)時，這些詞語脫口而出。

這就是為什么我不能離開。

是她。

我強行張開手，松開連枷，與此同時亞歷桑德拉在床上原地抽搐了一下，又發(fā)出另一聲叫喊。她正在被噩夢纏繞，我在曾經(jīng)服務(wù)過的陰謀團的奴隸那里見過太多次了。

Shae’lith執(zhí)政官一直樂于往他的奴隸圍欄里充滿靈能性氣體，以求過度刺激Mon-Keigh那原始的大腦的視聽皮層。再加上隨著食物攝入的致幻劑構(gòu)成了實質(zhì)上的噩夢雞尾酒。我曾在那些慘叫聲增長到干擾了我的一些巫靈時問過他這個，而他回答說這有助于他的睡眠。

想到亞歷桑德拉正遭受著如此噩夢，我便反胃到我想已經(jīng)忘了如何感受的程度。

又是一聲低喊，我皺起了眉頭。我可以關(guān)門離開，去聽不到她的住所的另一頭，但我立即便知道這沒有用。事實上，我很確定這段距離只會讓我的胃翻騰得更猛烈。

相反，我抓住梳妝臺旁的椅子，把它拉到她正睡著的床邊，然后坐了下來。

“我這么做只是因為你沒有醒著，看不到也聽不到它，”我嘟噥著伸出手去，滑進(jìn)她的一只手里，她的那只手立刻就以驚人的力道抓住了我的，我的拇指在她的指關(guān)節(jié)上撫過幾次?！拔覀儗⒉粫勂疬@個，Cre’yth……永遠(yuǎn)?！?/p>

我不確定自己為什么要講話。她不可能在噩夢的煎熬中聽到我，但……也許她能聽到別的什么。

清了清嗓子，我皺起眉來?！隘偭说镊饶А@種描述肯定從未這么準(zhǔn)確過?！?/p>

亞歷桑德拉細(xì)微的低喊以嘶啞的啜泣收尾，我嘆了口氣。

“嗯很好，”我輕捏了下她的手，然后張開嘴唇，深吸了一口氣……

然后我開始唱歌。

?

原文：

This wasn’t what I wanted.

“…Attica Tenzen, Orissa Kassiter, Milla Roman…”

I wasn’t even certain what I had wanted. I knew that Alessandra needed clothes, but human physiognomy was bulky and odd to me, and any one of the drab sacks they draped their bodies in looked similar to any other. I had reckoned that perhaps she would find something to wear in the personal effects of the female who lived her before but this was not how I’d wanted it to go.

“…Septime Ulyssanna, Mikasa Maer, Zenova Thrace.”

Leaning on the door, I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest as I listened to her intone the names of the dead. Perhaps pretending to be asleep as she wandered these quarters had been a mistake, so long as she was distracted by my presence she wasn't thinking of the events that resulted from her coming to this world.

Every name she spoke aloud carried with it an echo of pain that road a sick, tarry wave which I could hardly stomach. Never before had I considered the flavor of pain to have a poor taste, at the very least it might have no taste at all, but Alessandra’s pain?

I found I had no liking for it.

Her voice trailed off at the ninth name, and she grew quiet for a moment before picking up the cadence again.

“O’ Emperor, Lord and Master of Mankind, keep these names and bear them to glory,” Alessandra’s voice was tight and strained, and I could hear the tears in it. “May my Sisters fight ever by thy side in thy eternal war against the adversaries of man, and may… may they look kindly upon me, til we stand side by side once more at thy right hand.”

Uncertainty was not something I was accustomed to.

This pain she felt, there was nothing I could do to alleviate it, nothing I could grant her that would lift the yoke of her survival from her shoulders.?

“And when her time is nigh, though it be not thy province, I beg thee, O’ Faultless One, to stretch out thy hand to this benighted world-”

I froze, a chill riding up my spine as Alessandra continued to pray to her dead Emperor.

“-and bear hence the xenos soul of Isarae of the Aeldari away from the hunger of the Dark Gods, for she has shown me kindness and grace, and she has been gentle to me, and I would beg thee, God-Emperor on Holy Terra, to extend to her the smallest touch of thy infinite mercy.”

She was praying for her sisters… and for?me.

“Ave Imperator ad Domine Aeternum.”

I swallowed thickly, a strange pain taking up residence in my chest as Alessandra closed her prayer. It was one thing to hear one of their genhanced zealots screaming litanies of hatred at me on the backswing of a powered blade, but another thing entirely to hear a prayer for protection and absolution spoken for my soul.

“I do not need absolution,” I hissed softly, “there is no light beyond the veil, only the hungering dark.”

The cycle ticked by noiselessly, save for the occasional distant detonations of the Orks finding something new to blow up. I should have been doing something productive, something useful or at the very least something that steered me closer to my goal. I had come to this world to die and for reasons I couldn’t quite place I was becoming less and less focused on that.

Alessandra was distracting me, this was obvious, but why?

Why was she distracting me so thoroughly? Why was it that every time I neared the door to leave her behind, I felt an ache in the pit of my stomach?

I stood from where I’d been leaning on the door for what felt like, and what may have in fact been, hours.

Night had fallen, the planetary cycle moving quickly through its paces as I made my way out into the living room to stare out across the balcony.

Human cities are such ugly things.

At least the gracefully bladed spires of Commorragh were artfully designed and placed. These spires which soared into the heavens like pestilential spears to blacken the skies with their weather-scarred frames seemed to have been jammed into place at random, risen wherever the short-sighted species that owned them foresaw a need for space without the faintest consideration for where they would go from there.

A faint chiming drew my attention to the jetbike, and I narrowed my eyes. Only the passive sensory array was still active on it and there was nothing that would trigger it on this brittle world.

“Nothing but the webway portal,” I breathed, cursing as I crossed the room, tore the tarp off of the bike, and began cycling up the energy cells.

It took a moment but as soon as I was able to I engaged an active scan, narrow-band, and aimed at the hills where I had emerged.

The signature was faint, but it was there.

Something had emerged from the webway, and recently,?

“Raiders?” I mused on that for a moment. “No… no Drukhari would bother to come here, no Archon would waste their resources hunting a mad Succubus in a den of Orks,” I chuckled at the thought of myself as mad, and reasoned that it was probably truer than not. “Then my Craftworld kin? But why?”

The Aeldari of the Craftworlds were loathsomely restricted creatures, but it was always difficult to predict why they were anywhere until it was too late. Their Seers had them traipsing the length of the known galaxy to twist the skeins of fate this way or that for various reasons, so I supposed there must be something here that fit that description.

“It must be truly dire for them to risk using a gate so close to the Dark City,” I laughed as I powered down the jetbike. No need to draw their attention, after all.?

This would not be the first time that Craftworld Aeldarii had interfered in some seemingly pointless human war, but it was just my bad luck I’d found one they were interested in. I had no desire to die to my self-righteous cousins, that death sat ill with me.?

Sighing, I leaned back in the seat of the bike and considered my options. There was no way they would fail to notice a Wych slaughtering Orks with abandon, even in the middle of a war, and that meant I would have to put off my plans until I was certain they had left.

Somehow, that didn’t seem as irritating to me as it should have.

“I should still investigate it eventually though,” I muttered as I pulled the tarp over the jetbike again.?

I would have to plant a sensor so I knew when they had left this festering city, otherwise it would all be guesswork, and I hated guesswork.

Not now though… later. Now they would be setting up a forward outpost to operate from, not too close to the gate, but close enough to monitor it. They wouldn’t want an entire Druchii raiding party emerging on their powdered arses, after all.

Fortunately, I had something else to distract me in the meantime.

I returned to the bedroom, opening the door quietly with only the barest rapping of my knuckles against the threshold to herald my entrance.

Alessandra was sleeping, as I had suspected. What I had not expected, was what she was sleeping?in.

It was a dress, one that was clearly meant to be worn by someone shorter and leaner than her, as it came down to her mid-calves instead of to her ankles where it seemed like it was supposed to.?

Alessandra was blessed with very human curves, wide hips, strong legs, and broad shoulders from carrying another body’s weight of armor for cycles at a time. Her arms had the definition and power necessary to brace a Bolter firing on automatic by main force if necessary, but there was a softness to the muscle that spoke of her youth.

I don’t know why, but I found myself staring at her much as she had stared at me when we were bathing. I hadn’t found her nearly so physically engaging then. Emotionally, yes… her flavor was something I was still trying to place, but what I felt now was purely physical.

The way the too-small dress hugged her form, and how she was curled up asleep and clutching a pillow to her chest made it difficult to compare her to the warrioress who had out-charged an Ork Nob whilst screaming and firing her Bolter. She looked… vulnerable, more than just something I could kill, but something else. Something that set a light in the deep places of my chest that I hadn’t felt in better than a thousand years.

I… wanted to protect her.

Alessandra let out a soft cry, and I almost leapt in place at the sudden sound. It was sharp, like a cry of pain, and in an instant my hand had a white-knuckled grip on the haft of razorflail.

“So that’s why,” the words escaped my lips as the realisation struck me and rose out of my combat stance.

That's why I couldn't leave.

It was her.

I forced my hand open, releasing the flail as Alessandra jerked in place on the bed and let out another cry. She was having a nightmare, I’d seen it more than enough in the slaves of the Kabal I’d served.?

Archon Shae’lith had been fond of filling his slave pens with psychogenic gases meant to overstimulate the audio/visual cortex of the Mon-Keigh’s primitive brain. That combined with ingested hallucinogens in their food made for a literal nightmare of a cocktail. I’d asked him about it once when the shrieking had grown such that it was distracting some of my Wyches, and he had said that it helped him sleep.

The thought of Alessandra being subjected to such a nightmare actually turned my stomach in a way I thought I’d long since forgotten how to feel.

Another small cry, and I grimaced. I could close the doors and leave, go to the other side of the quarters where I couldn’t hear her, but I knew instantly that it wouldn’t help. In fact, I was certain that the distance would make the churning in my stomach worse.

Instead, I grabbed the chair by the vanity, pulled it around to the side of the bed she was sleeping on, and sat down.

“I am only doing this because you’re not awake to see or hear it,” I muttered quietly as I reached out and slid my hand into one of hers, which she immediately gripped it with alarming strength, and I ran my thumb over her knuckles a few times. “We will never speak of this,?Cre’yth… ever.”

I wasn’t sure why I was talking. She couldn’t hear me from within the throes of her nightmare, but… perhaps she would hear something else.

Clearing my throat, I scowled. “Mad Succubus… surely such a descriptor has never been more accurate.”

Alessendra’s soft cry ended in a croaked sob, and I sighed.

“Oh very well,” I gave her hand a small squeeze, then parted my lips, took a deep breath…

And I began to sing.