The Eternal Front: A Lines of Thunder Novel (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

When the question penetrated Goldros’s attention, he said, “That’s a very dashta way to begin, Spiderfish. Have you been reading our ancient texts? Maybe the Song-la Dashta?”

  “Would it surprise you to hear that I have? It’s my business to know you Tacchies better than you know yourselves.”

  “The Haphans consider it subversive literature. The manual for teaching the manleaders of old. A death sentence to have a copy.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” Jephia smiled. “You still haven’t answered my question.

  “You asked if he will survive, and to move things along, you want me to say he will. It’s mere trickery, Jephesandra. Do you really trust that quirk that some of us have? If you lead us into speaking something aloud, it must become true—because we will not speak a lie. A neat trick when it works.”

  “You still haven’t answered.”

  “Let me say it, then. Your brother will survive this night.”

  Jephia stared hard at the colonel.

  Goldros added, “If that does not entirely soothe you, I can put together other words that may sound more soothing.”

  “Either you’re pretending to be obtuse, or you’re actually stupid,” Jephia said, with that quiet voice that was her most dangerous. “Neither of those are useful. You must stop entertaining yourself with word games or you’ll get nowhere.”

  She waited. Jephia’s silences could be more ominous than any of her threats, as Gawarty had experienced himself. The silence yawned longer as his nerves tightened.

  One of Goldros’s eyes shifted to Gawarty. “I might be using those words to make you cautious. If my words sound like threats to you, well, a discerning listener might assume that I want to be both polite and understood at the same time. Perhaps my words seem untethered to my real intentions because you don’t know what I want.”

  “If you think I don’t know everything about you, colonel—”

  “Shut your fucking hole, you bitch,” Goldros snapped. It was an entirely different voice, loud and full of venom. As if a different personality had just flickered through that impassive face.

  Gawarty stiffened. He was further surprised when Jephia clutched his hand beside his leg, out of Goldros’s view.

  Goldros resumed in his regular voice. “What I want is very simple. I want a world in which I can function without constant interference. No one should have to live under close scrutiny. No one should have their underlings continually kidnapped and killed by meddling foreigners. I want a world where I do not have to disguise the service I give. Where I do not have to route around damage caused by others. I do not want to move ten pieces on the board just so I can move one piece. I know you understand what I’m saying, Spiderfish. You might sometimes even feel the same.”

  “That’s not all you want,” Jephia said.

  “Very well. In the short term, I want the pressure of your investigation off me because the coming hours will be delicate. I want the games to stop.”

  Jephia’s eyes darted furiously, as if she was reading the air. She was thinking hard, but Gawarty hadn’t seen her so transparent since they were children. She said, “You’ve given me two levels of thinking. Do you have any others?”

  “There are more levels,” Goldros said, “but they incorporate information you don’t have. You would merely be unsettled to hear them.”

  “Well, Goldros, you now have my complete distrust.”

  “Mere emotion,” he chided softly. “You don’t like to have information withheld. Can’t you believe I have your best interests at heart? In this, let me be the Haphan. I’ll let you be the Tachba.”

  Jephia hesitated. Gawarty tore his eyes off her, and returned to Goldros’s keen stare. Had his head moved? It was impossible to tell.

  “Yes, Spiderfish,” Goldros said, “I know that about you.”

  “What does he know?”

  “Shut up, Warty.”

  “I’ve told you my desires,” Goldros said. “Now let me tell you yours. Throughout the empire you are a famous Tachba lover. It’s a reputation you embrace to hide the truth, which is that you really, truly love the Tachba. You want to match the Tachba joy for joy, pain for pain. You don’t want to see the Haphan Empire fall, but you have no special affection for it. Why is that?”

  “I’ve never wondered,” she said. “You tell me.”

  “Here is where I am uncertain, and I am of several minds. You may have abnormal brain chemistry, subtly off the human norm. When I study you from afar, I perceive no empathy in your actions. Maybe your every act is a performance to mislead the world. The only time you can forget yourself is among the polluted. A Tachba would understand your struggle and not judge you for it.”

  “I am not a sociopath,” Jephia said softly.

  “Maybe not. You sometimes give evidence of affection.” Goldros gave a languid blink. “Whatever you are, you would prefer if the Empire did not fall to the Moon Kingdoms. That is because you don’t want Sessera to fall to the Moon Kingdoms. If that happened, our strange blend of cultures would disappear from the world, and with it the only place you feel at home.

  “Next, let’s consider how you have been industriously spiderfishing behind the scenes, gilding your reputation and building coalitions for when the South breaks through. I have your desire, but now I need your plan. Jephesandra Liu Tawarna, tell me how you intend to save my nation.”

  Jephia had gone still herself, staring back at Goldros with a slack, unguarded face. To Gawarty it seemed like she’d gone past thinking and into pure shock. Without that animating surface, Jephia finally looked like what she was: a small woman, fragile, not much older or more prepared than Gawarty himself.

  Goldros broke the silence. “Good. You do not have a glib answer. Maybe we shall hear your truth at last.”

  “My truth, Goldros?” Jephia sounded tired. “The South will break through our lines, and they will do it soon. No amount of magical thinking will change that truth. It is a simple fact that the line will be overrun. That Ville Emsa and then all of Sessera will be lost. That the Haphan Empire on Grigory IV will fall. To my line of thinking this cannot happen. Grigory IV cannot revert to barbarism.”

  “Many lines of thought lead to this conclusion,” Goldros said. “What is to be done about it?”

  “Many things could have been done, but try to find anybody who will listen.” She turned bitter. “It doesn’t matter who hears your message. Happie, Sessie, Tacchie: they will reject anything that you haven’t prepared them to expect.”

  “Always having to prepare the path for others—it is wearing. But I want your fix for our problem.”

  “The fix is simple: Sessera must become independent. The Kingdom of Free Sessera. What’s more, Sessera is ready for this. It’s the only province we Haphans have been able to progress this far into civilization.”

  “Why must Sessera be free?”

  “It will be the perfect buffer between the Haphans and the South. The Southies will fight in a frenzy against alien invaders, so I’ll get rid of the aliens. The Pollution can’t sustain long wars between rival Tachba factions. It only unites against an external enemy.”

  “There is the Pollution, but then there is politics,” Goldros murmured.

  “That’s the easy part. The politics are already settled. The various kings of the South have sent envoys to us for a hundred years. They only want to see the province in Tachba hands.”

  “You have thought further on this line than I hoped,” Goldros said.

  The colonel’s teeth flashed as he spoke, startlingly white. Gawarty stared, transfixed. Had that monster actually just smiled?

  Goldros continued, “And for Sessera to be independent…”

  “For Sessera to be independent it needs a queen, immediately. It’s tradition and Pollution rolled into one, the only thing to rally Sessera together before the South breaks through the lines.”

  “From your perspective, you are the queen.” The colonel’s expression didn’t change, but his voice held de
ep satisfaction.

  “For want of an alternative, yes,” she said. “I think I can do it. I can be the strange queen of Sessera, something new in history. I spent years building an identity for the Spiderfish that separates her from the Haphans in everybody’s mind.”

  “What a fitting use for your obsession with us,” Goldros said, making Jephia flinch. “Your plan rings with truth, matches every detail of your life. It is the reason you know much of our Deep Tongue. It is the reason you uncovered all those unsavory histories of the Pollution—yes, I’ve seen your school papers. It is the reason you have been collecting levers on all my underlings, and the reason you’ve been trying to steer the underworld like a right manleader. It is the reason you charm as many Tachba as you terrorize: so affection and fear will twist into a strong and binding rope.”

  “I’m naturally charming.”

  Now Goldros undeniably smiled. His cheeks, which might have been chiseled granite for all they moved, quirked and dimpled. It was a winning, lopsided smile, a brief glimpse of the man he had once been. “It’s more than ambition and discipline, Jephesandra. There is real love there, too, neh?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “In these final days, you found a distraction. A young Tachba man.”

  Jephia glanced at Gawarty and turned away quickly. “I was surprised by affection.”

  “Affection?” A placid blink. Goldros’s smile faded, and his face went still again. “This is a young Tachba in the middle of the coming violence. He can very easily come to harm.”

  Jephia’s hand was still wrapped around Gawarty’s, and these words turned it into a claw. Nothing played on her face. “Everyone can come to harm, Goldros. There is nothing special about harm. It can even come to you.”

  “So it’s more than affection, then. That is most unlike a Tachba queen.” Goldros went still again, pursing his lips.

  Gawarty stole a glance around. Morning was creeping over the horizon, bringing with it a day full of he-knew-not-what.

  Goldros said, “Very well. That is the best truth. I have clarity on the next few hours, and perhaps you have learned something about me. Are we friends at long last?”

  “Do you have friends, Goldros?”

  “Sadly, no. Haphan, my name is Thaxanran.” A slight pause. “Do you have a name?”

  “We Haphans aren’t so fancy, Goldros. We’re a humble people, as you know.” Jephia had the ghost of a smile. “The family who love me most—when I was a child, they called me Jeppers.”

  “If your plans succeed,” Goldros said, “you will need a better name than Queen Jeppers.”

  “Yes, that name strikes fear into nobody but myself.” She straightened her shoulders and met his gaze. “One last thing, Goldros. My father runs the front, but you run the soldiers. For anything to happen, the Haphans need to abandon these trenches.”

  “It is already in motion. I know exactly how to make the Haphans flee north.”

  When they both fell silent, Gawarty lurched to his feet. He pulled up Jephia with his white-knuckled grip. She glanced at him in surprise.

  “I assume we’re being secretive, Jephia,” he said. “It’s dawn in ten minutes.”

  “Goldros,” she said. “You keep mentioning trust and friendship. Speaking secrets aloud doesn’t make trust and friendship. You and I only have common interests.”

  For the briefest moment, Goldros looked bleak. “Common interest is the food of friendship. Consider how friendships fail, and you will see the truth of this.” A shadow of another smile. “Thank you for a satisfying conversation, Spiderfish. I admire how you didn’t ask me about the cost in Haphan lives when I drive them from the trenches. You are so much more Tachba than the other queen.”

  Jephia swung back to the colonel. “The other queen?”

  Goldros’s eyes narrowed. “That was the final piece of information I needed. I believe I mentioned how extra facts could be unsettling. Please put it out of your mind. Our common interests are enough for now.”

  She opened her mouth to dig deeper, but Gawarty yanked her away. She hesitated, then pivoted on her heel and followed. It looked almost like hurrying.

  When she caught up at the traverse, he said, “Jephia—”

  She hissed him to silence. They turned the corner and found at least a dozen enormous, armed Sesseran soldiers lining the walls of the trench. He has a personal bodyguard! They were not twitching or fidgeting like most Tachba troops. These were high-function creatures, intent and focused, no doubt the best that Colonel Goldros could assemble through years of herding soldiers on the front. Their eyes followed his sister while they passed lines of waiting messengers and clusters of helpies.

  Three more turns of the trench and they were out of Colonel Goldros’s domain. Jephia didn’t speak until they entered the third trench, which had Haphan officers intermingled with the troops. She muttered, “I didn’t know what he was. He kindly showed me.”

  “The colonel?”

  “All the signs were there. My damn idiot staff never noticed. I just didn’t suspect…”

  “Jephia, what happened back there?”

  She tried to grin for him, but it guttered out. “Forget the Southies. Forget the underworld bosses in Ville Emsa. That creature back there, he is the one to be afraid of.”

  “He needs to die,” Gawarty said, surprising himself. “You know I’d be the last to say something like that.”

  “He can’t die,” she answered. “He’s already too interesting.”

  She increased her pace and pulled ahead. Gawarty’s spinning thoughts made him clumsier than usual in the trench. The Sesserans moved out of his path, but when he turned a traverse, he jostled a young Haphan sergeant who didn’t have the same instinct.

  “Watch yourself, you fucking scrag,” she snapped, scrambling back. She saw his uniform, and her hand dropped from her sidearm. “Lieutenant. I thought you were someone else.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Gawarty murmured.

  Jephia might have been ignoring his questions, but she waited ahead for him with her hand stretched out. “Warty, do please try to keep up.”

  “Did you see that?”

  “I see everything.” Another watery grin. “That girl was terrified of her Sessies. How far we have fallen in just the last few weeks. Our comfortable little system is blowing apart at the seams.”

  “Based on what you told Goldros, you don’t think we’ll stand against the South. You haven’t thought that for a long time, if ever.”

  “I’ll treat that as a question,” Jephia said. “I’ve had my fears for a long time. Speaking them aloud to Goldros—well, it was as painful and embarrassing as it probably sounded. They’re ludicrous, or at least they were. Now it finally seems that my fears have caught fire and they’re spreading.” She gestured to the hurried, frenetic activity surrounding them, conducted mostly in fearful whispers. He and Jephia were acting the same, Gawarty realized, hurrying and whispering.

  She continued, “My feelings are mixed. I’m always glad to be proven right, of course, but there’s too much happening too fast. It played out one way in my head, and it’s already off the rails. I only wanted to burn the house down. The house is going to go off like a two ton bomb.”

  Gawarty didn’t understand, but he knew she was well and truly afraid. He’d never witnessed that. It had only ever been play-acting, with her. He even felt a twinge of alien brotherly empathy. Let’s be honest, Gawarty thought. She tried to tell me all of this, and I dismissed it.

  Nothing was what he’d thought. It was all worse than he’d thought… and he had know idea what was about to replace it.

  “Leaving aside your plan to become the Queen of all Sessera—” he began.

  “Yes, the silliest confession of all.”

  “Did Goldros just tell us that there is a manleader in Ville Emsa?”

  “Gawarty,” she sighed, “he told us that and so much more. Shall I go through it for you, and you can check my sanity?—But wait a moment.�
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  She raked the trench with her eyes, and then found the turn that brought them into the vast, open staging area. Gawarty had been here daily in Drivvy’s steam cart, but its familiarity brought him no reassurance. Jephia’s command car idled in the open, and a hulking Haphan officer stood next to the open driver’s door. He wasn’t one of Jephia’s sergeants, though he would be easy to mistake in the darkness.

  “That car is a decoy,” Jephia said. She grabbed his sleeve and drew him toward a boxy ambulance at the edge of the staging area, out of sight in the shadows. The twin doors in the back opened, and Sergeant Ho gave them a hand inside.

  “Sergeant, you may congratulate me,” she said. “I’ve discovered there is a manleader in Ville Emsa.”

  The relief which had shined on Sergeant Ho’s face now vanished, shifting to guarded doubt.

  Jephia gave Gawarty a look. “Now do you see, Warty? It’s impossible to get traction.”

  Sergeant Ho checked Gawarty, who nodded. “I was there, sergeant, I heard it too. There is a queen in the city. Maybe even more than one.”

  She shot him a glare of warning and he stopped. “Warty, you asked what Colonel Goldros revealed to us, so let me tell you. He agrees that Sessera will fall, but that it shouldn’t fall to the South. Good start! Thanks to this meeting he has an agreement with me—but he’s not an idealist, he’s cynical. He’ll want to cover his bets, so he will have a similar agreement with the new queen as well. Next,” she ticked the points off with her fingers, “Goldros could have left me in the dark about this queen but he didn’t. He brought me in to balance the scales, maybe to keep her from growing too strong. He might even prefer me to her—a foreigner and a Haphan will always be easier to control than a real old-style manleader. Goldros might be unpalatably clever, but this new queen has him worried.”

  Jephia dropped her hand. “I wonder how that sounds, Gawarty. Is it too crazy to be true?”

  “It isn’t,” Gawarty said.

  Jephia smirked at Sergeant Ho’s blank confusion. “My brother has become my sanity checker, sergeant. You see how desperate we are?”

  “Any chance I’ll get the whole story, colonel?” the sergeant asked.