Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26 In the underground parking garage of the Bell Tower Hotel in Xian, China, Jonah Wizard emerged from his limo just in time to see a six- foot terracotta warrior figure being loaded carefully onto a truck by two uniformed workmen. "Hey, where'd you get—?" The words were barely out of his mouth when a second warrior was toted by, this time under the supervision of Cora Wizard. "Mom— where did these come from?" "We're the Janus," she explained. "Do you really think we can't whip up a few statues to replace the ones you broke? Careful with that!" she snapped as one of the porters sideswiped a pillar. "It's supposed to look two thousand years old, not two million!"

第二十六章在中国西安钟楼酒店的地下停车场，乔纳·奇才从他的豪华轿车里出来，正好看到一个六英尺高的兵马俑正被两个穿制服的工人小心翼翼地装上一辆卡车。 “嘿，你从哪儿弄来的——？”话还没说完，另一个战士就被抬了过来，这次是在科拉巫师的监督下。 “妈妈——这些是从哪儿来的？”“我们是两面神，”她解释说。 “你真的认为我们不能做几个雕像来代替你打碎的那些吗？” 小心点！”她厉声说，这时一个搬运工侧面擦到了一根柱子。 “它应该看起来有两千年的历史，而不是两百万！”

She turned back to her son. "I've been thinking about your request to be relieved of your responsibilities in the clue hunt." "And?" he prompted anxiously. In answer, her hand came around and slapped him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling. He scrambled up again. "What's up with that, yo?" "I am not 'yo,'" Cora Wizard said through clenched teeth. "I am the head of this branch, which is bigger than you or I or Mozart or Jane Cahill herself. The future of our kind, from Spielberg to the lowliest juggler on a unicycle, lies in the thirty-nine clues, and I won't allow my son or anyone else to take the Janus out of the running for this prize. Especially now that we know there are Madrigals involved." "Are you sure about that?" Jonah challenged. "What if the kid was just blowing smoke?" "I should have figured it out years ago," she berated herself. "No wonder Grace and her oh-soperfect daughter never allied themselves with one

她转过身来看着她的儿子。 “我一直在考虑你要求解除你在寻找线索中的职责。” “然后呢？”他焦急地追问。 作为回答，她的手转过身来，狠狠地扇了他一巴掌，把他打倒在地。 他又爬了起来。“这是怎么回事，你呢？”“我不是‘你’，”科拉·奇才咬紧牙关说。 “我是这个分支的头，它比你、我、莫扎特或简·卡希尔本人都重要。 我们人类的未来，从斯皮尔伯格到最底层骑独轮车的杂耍者，都在这39条线索中，我不会让我的儿子或任何人把Janus从这个奖项的角逐中夺走。 尤其是现在我们知道有牧歌在里面。” “你确定吗？”约拿的挑战。 “如果那孩子只是在吹烟呢？”“我几年前就该明白了，”她责备自己。 难怪格雷斯和她那十全十美的女儿从来没有和一个人结盟

of the branches. We all thought it was part of their high-and-mighty routine— always above the fray, never dirtying their hands. And all this time, they were the lowest of the low." "I'm not cut out for the clue hunt, Mom," Jonah pleaded. "I'm not good at it." "You are Janus," his mother said firmly. "You are more gifted and brilliant than all the Lucian, Tomas, and Ekat troglodytes put together. For centuries, we have played second fiddle to those Lucian butchers, when our qualities dwarf theirs. And do you want to know the reason?" He stared at her, totally abashed. "The reason is that Lucians stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They lie, they cheat, they steal." Her laser-guided eyes locked with her son's. "And they kill." Jonah Wizard had spent his entire life in service to the Janus branch. On their instructions, he had become a rapper, a TV star, and an international mogul. He had no doubt what was expected of him next.

树枝。我们都认为这是他们趾高气扬的日常生活的一部分——总是高高在上，从不弄脏自己的手。 一直以来，他们都是最底层的人。” “妈妈，我不是找线索的料，”乔纳恳求道。 “我不擅长这个。”“你是雅努斯，”他母亲坚定地说。 “你比所有卢西恩人、托马斯人和埃卡特人加在一起更有天赋，更聪明。 几个世纪以来，当我们的品质让那些卢西恩屠夫相形见绌时，我们一直是他们的次要角色。 你想知道原因吗？”他盯着她，十分羞愧。 “原因是卢西亚人为了达到目标不择手段。 他们撒谎、欺骗、偷窃。” 她被激光引导的眼睛和儿子的眼睛紧紧地盯在一起。 “他们杀人。”巫师约拿一生都在为雅努斯分支服务。 在他们的指导下，他成为了一名说唱歌手、电视明星和国际大亨。 他毫不怀疑接下来人们对他的期望。

With the fall climbing season over, Tingri wasn't much of a tourist attraction, so they had the guesthouse all to themselves. Amy, Dan, and Nellie sat around the open fire pit in the kitchen, completely exhausted, but too excited to sleep. Saladin had no such problem. He was curled up on the hearth and hadn't moved for hours. "This is wonderful," Nellie murmured contentedly. "The heat of the fire, the cold, dry air. Someone ought to open a resort in Tingri. Even the smoke smells richer, earthier. Maybe it's the altitude." Dan laughed without humor. "Maybe it's the yak poop. That's what they heat with up here." "And cook, too?" Amy asked in dismay. She pushed away her cup of sweet aromatic tea. They had spent the evening filling each other in on their separate adventures throughout China, marveling at how such different paths had brought the two of them to the foot of Everest at almost the same moment. Dan howled with delight at Amy's description of Saladin's plunge off the Great Wall. And Amy

随着秋季登山季节的结束，定日不再是一个旅游景点，所以宾馆就属于他们自己。 艾米、丹和内莉围坐在厨房的露天火坑旁，精疲力竭，但兴奋得睡不着觉。 萨拉丁没有这样的问题。 他蜷缩在炉边，好几个小时没动了。 “这太好了，”内利满意地低声说。 “火的热度，寒冷干燥的空气。 应该有人在定日开个度假村。 甚至连烟味都更浓，更土气。 也许是海拔的原因。”丹笑得毫无幽默感。 “也许是牦牛粪的缘故。这就是他们在这里取暖的东西。” “还有厨师？”艾米沮丧地问。 她推开一杯香甜的茶。 他们整个晚上都在互相介绍各自在中国各地的冒险经历，惊讶于如此不同的道路如何在几乎同一时刻将他们两个人带到了珠穆朗玛峰脚下。 听了艾米描述的萨拉丁从长城上跳下的情景，丹高兴得大叫起来。 和艾米

laughed just as hard when Dan tried to convince her that their cousin Jonah wasn't all bad. "Seriously," he insisted, "you've got to feel sorry for someone who's trying to live up to guys like Mozart and Rembrandt. And that mother! He could sell a trillion CDs, and it would never be good enough for her. She's like a cross between Aunt Beatrice and Medusa. Man, she practically swallowed her own head when I told her we were Madrigals." Amy drew in a sharp breath. "You told her that?" "I couldn't help it. I was just too mad." She nodded. "I hear you. But you know how the Cahills feel about Madrigals. The other teams will be gunning for us twice as much as before. We have no idea where to look for the next clue. And which of our darling cousins will be willing to trade information with us now? Nobody would form an alliance with a Madrigal." Dan looked crestfallen, then suddenly leaped to his feet. "Wait a minute! Maybe we're not so dead in the water. Remember the Beard Buddha from

当丹试图让她相信他们的表弟约拿并非一无是处时，她笑得同样厉害。 “说真的，”他坚持说，“你应该为那些努力不辜负莫扎特和伦勃朗这样的人感到难过。 还有那个妈妈！他能卖出一万亿张cd，但这对她来说永远都不够好。 她就像碧翠丝和美杜莎的结合体。 天啊，当我告诉她我们是牧歌时，她简直是咽下了自己的头。” 艾米深深地吸了一口气。 “你告诉她了？”“我没办法。 我只是太生气了。”她点了点头。 “我明白了。但你知道卡希尔家的人是怎么看牧歌的。 其他队对我们的攻击会是以前的两倍。 我们不知道去哪里寻找下一条线索。 我们亲爱的表兄弟中有谁愿意跟我们交换情报呢？ 没有人会和牧歌党结盟。” 丹看起来垂头丧气，然后突然跳了起来。 “等一下！”也许我们并没有陷入僵局。 记得胡子佛吗

Grace's house? Well, the real thing is on Mount Song. In a cave behind it, I found these ancient burned-up pieces of lab equipment. Wasn't Gideon Cahill's lab destroyed in a fire?" Amy nodded, intrigued. "Where's all that stuff now?" "It was too much to bring, so I re-hid it. But there was one thing I couldn't leave." He reached into the pocket of his jeans and drew out the painted miniature in the gold frame. Amy was thunderstruck. "A picture of Mom?" "Look closer. The clothes, the hair. That's not Mom. It's old. Maybe centuries old." Amy took the miniature and peered at it. "An ancestor, then." "A Cahill ancestor," Dan amended. "And when you've got Cahills—" "They're usually mixed up in the thirty-nine clues." Amy gently pried the oval miniature out of the frame. The portrait was unmarked and unsigned. But engraved on the inside of the frame was: PROPERTY OF ANNE BONNY. "Anne Bonny!" Amy repeated. "She was a pirate

格蕾丝的房子吗?真正的东西在嵩山上。 在它后面的一个山洞里，我发现了这些被烧毁的古老实验室设备。 吉迪恩·卡荷尔的实验室不是毁于一场大火吗？”艾米点了点头，很好奇。 “那些东西现在都到哪儿去了？”“我带的东西太多了，所以我把它重新藏了起来。 但有一样东西我不能离开。” 他把手伸进牛仔裤的口袋，拿出了金框里的彩绘微缩画。 艾米大吃一惊。“妈妈的照片？”“看近了。 衣服，发型。那不是妈妈。 这是旧的。也许有几个世纪了。” 艾米拿起微缩模型，仔细看了看。 “那么，一个祖先。”“卡希尔家族的祖先。”丹补充道。 “当你有卡希尔的时候——”“它们通常混在三十九条线索里。” 艾米轻轻地把椭圆形的微型照片从相框里撬了出来。 这幅画像没有标记，也没有签名。 但是画框里面却刻着：安妮·邦尼的财产。 “安妮·波尼!”艾米重复。 “她是个海盗