Volume 16: Tales From the Sanctioned Brothel: Part 3: The Chase
Chapter 5
The Map
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
July, Year 371
“The only good thing about hiking in the rain,” Bors Dartán said, prodding the fire with a stick, “is that it’s nice warming up afterward.”“It is, isn’t it?” Valgund Linnett slipped an arm out of his voluminous rain jacket and draped it over his companion’s shoulder, bringing their shivering bodies close together.They were in their favorite cave in the highlands above the vacation villas—really just a deep crevice in the side of a cliff with a soft earth floor and a gap in the roof to serve as a chimney. Bors still tended to balk at meeting in Gersha’s villa, though it was practically unoccupied most of the time. They’d settled on this as a compromise well suited to warmer weather.Bors flinched at Valgund’s contact, making Valgund draw back. “I’m sorry. Was that too forward?”“No!” Bors edged back toward Valgund, his jaw set. “After all we’ve already done . . . no. It’s just kind of a shock, you know? After those months in the city.”Valgund didn’t need to be told why physical contact was a shock. Like Bors, he spent most of his time alone. “It’s okay,” he said as Bors scooted himself determinedly into the shelter of the jacket, pressing his side to Valgund’s. “We don’t have to jump back into anything. We can take it slow—or not at all.”Bors rested his head on Valgund’s shoulder. Despite the determined performance of affection, his whole bird-thin body was still tense. “You know that I . . . like you.”“I like you, too.” Why did this feel so much like an awkward schoolboy romance? Valgund had always expected to graduate eventually to some kind of confident sexual maturity. But not everyone could be like Tilrey, he supposed. “That’s why I want you to feel comfortable.”Bors relaxed a fraction. “I do.”Valgund wrapped his arm back around Bors’s shoulders and reached up, very carefully, to stroke the spy’s hair. “When I got your message, I hoped it wasn’t an emergency. Still no sign that Int/Sec knows what we did in the Sanctioned Sweetbush?”Bors shook his head, his hair tickling Valgund’s collarbone. “Not a peep. Everything seems normal. I suspect the Sweetbush staff is covering up the sabotage—if they even know yet themselves.”That was a relief. “I’m still meeting with the Northmen every few ten-days, the way we agreed.” Valgund said. “They haven’t seen any unusual activity at the bases they monitor.”“Good. Have you seen Aleks?”Bors always pronounced that name with an intensity he couldn’t hide. His little crush on the Northmen’s leader amused Valgund, though it certainly helped to know Aleks was extremely taken.“Only once,” he said. “He usually sends Lasha with one of the others.”Their small fire crackled, sending sparks whirling up to disappear through the crack in the rock ceiling. It was dark in here, with a musty smell of earth and decay, but through the openings came the flat white light of a rainy day without a sunset.“I brought a message that needs to go directly to Aleks,” Bors said, his voice faltering a little. “From Einara.”“Is she still scheming in the Brothel, then?” Valgund kept his own tone light. He’d never met this Einara and wasn’t sure he trusted her, though Bors and Aleks seemed to.“She has some intelligence that’s very interesting,” Bors said with professional admiration. He disentangled himself from Valgund and fumbled in his backpack, from which he snagged a slip of paper that he unfolded in the firelight.It was a printed map of Oslov with annotations in Bors’s handwriting. Five sets of coordinates had been marked—all of them deep in the Wastes, far from any mapped settlement. One was practically in the Southern Range, two in the far north above Redda, and two in between, with one of those right on the coast.“What are they?”“She won’t tell me.” Bors shot a sidelong glance at Valgund as if trying to gauge his friend’s likelihood of arguing. “She won’t even say where she got the coordinates. Only that she wants us to team up with the Northmen and investigate each of these sites. From what she did say and what I already know, I’m guessing some are covert military installations—surveilled and/or guarded. Others might be ruins, facilities that haven’t been used in decades or more.”Valgund didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Missile silos?”Bors shook his head. “Those are much more closely guarded. Nobody just lets slip their locations, and I’m guessing that’s how she got this intel—Brothel patrons with loose lips. No. I think we’re looking at a map of Redda’s nervous exoskeleton.”“Excuse me?”Bors refolded the paper and pressed it into Valgund’s hand. “You’re going to memorize the coordinates and then burn this. Show Aleks the general area of each one on a map, but keep the exact locations to yourself.”“But what are they?” Valgund asked, exasperated. Sabotaging the Sweetbush had been a test of his skill and a good deed for the health of the forest, his friend, and (less importantly) the Republic. But he had no idea what a “nervous exoskeleton” was or why they should do reconnaissance on it, particularly if it was heavily guarded.“It’s something we talk about in Int/Sec,” Bors said in his old superior way. “Sort of a legend—well, maybe more of a reality if you have the right clearance level. I don’t.” He leaned up against Valgund again. “Back in the early days, Whyberg and his fellow Councillors designed Redda’s infrastructure with a series of external failsafe switches. Back then, there were still factions of Feudals who could have overwhelmed the city. They outnumbered us, but they had no understanding of our tech. Using the failsafes, which were located in the Wastes, the Council could shut down the city—power, water, ventilation—and make it useless to invaders.”“And potentially freeze and starve everybody in it,” Valgund noted. He’d heard similar stories from his long-ago Hargist friends about magical terminals hidden somewhere that you could use to sabotage the whole city. When he was eighteen or nineteen, the notion of such power was thrilling. Now he could only think of the suffering it would cause.“I understand why the Northmen would be interested in locating this nervous exoskeleton,” he said. “They seem to want to stick it to modern civilization and live like Feudals themselves. But you?”“If we do this, the purpose would be research only,” Bors said. “A covert test of the city’s security.”“Does Einara know that?”“I doubt she even knows what she wants at this point, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the expert, and this is my operation now.” Bors picked up a stick and poked nervily at the fire, sending tiny flames shooting upward. “I mean, obviously I have no intention of sabotaging Redda.”“Of course not.” But, judging by Bors’s tone, Valgund wondered if he secretly liked the idea. “Think of it, though,” he said experimentally. “You could hold the whole Sector hostage. Int/Sec and everyone there who’s ever treated you like shit. You could threaten to turn off the power and watch them sweat.”Bors’s body had tensed up again. “I would never do that.”“I’m not saying you would. I just wondered.” How aware you are of your own contradictions.“You think that’s who I am? Some petty scorned functionary out for revenge?” Bors sighed. “I guess you can’t help wondering. But if I tell you what I’m really after, you mustn’t breathe a word to Aleks or any of the Northmen. Do you swear?”Valgund had an uneasy feeling in his gut, but he said, “I swear.”“Do you remember what happened on the way back from the Sweetbush in February? The patrol skimmer that stopped us in the woods and then let us go?”“After the commanding officer talked privately with Aleks.” Valgund’s mind had been worrying at the mystery for months. “If Aleks were an Int/Sec mole, though, the two of us would be in cells by now.”“He’s not a mole,” Bors snapped. “I’d know.”Then, as if regretting his harshness, he slipped an arm around Valgund’s waist. “You’re right to wonder, though. There are all sorts of undercover agents, and some of them play long, long games. Like I told you back then, Aleks has protection, and I want to know whose. Right now, I think the best candidate is Niko Karishkov.”“The Councillor? The one who was your mentor in Int/Sec?” It had something to do with Bors’s unfortunate history with Tilrey, but Valgund had forgotten the specifics.“That’s the one,” Bors said with a grim relish.They passed a flask of hot tea back and forth as Bors told Valgund everything he knew about the former head of Int/Sec. As a young man, Karishkov had spent years working undercover in Thurskein to root out Dissidents among the workers. His background was nothing special, but his success put him on a meteoric career path that included marriage to one of then-Council Majority Leader Verán’s nieces. After serving as director of Int/Sec, Karishkov was elected to the Council, where everyone expected him to become head of the Int/Sec Committee.For whatever reason, he ended up withdrawing his bid for that role, but he remained one of the most prominent voices on national security. And he claimed to be a particular expert on the Free Northmen, citing them as a threat whenever someone proposed relaxing restrictions in Thurskein or Karkei.“And yet,” Bors said, “Int/Sec has repeatedly arrested Aleks, with ample cause, and released him. What you saw was far from the first time. Director Gelmedyn is deep in Karishkov’s pocket, so I know Karishkov is behind this. The question is, why?”Valgund gazed into the glowing coals. He could barely discern the outlines of Bors’s face, only feel his friend’s warm breath in the air. “It’s certainly a mystery,” he agreed. “But is it worth breaking into these highly classified sites, most of which would take hellacious journeys just to access, so you can find out whether Karishkov is willing to throw Aleks in a cell or not? Especially if we’re likely to be occupying the cells right next to him?”“I didn’t say anything about breaking in,” Bors said. “Research. Reconnaissance. Aren’t you curious?”Valgund didn’t want to admit that he got the shudders remembering their flight from the Sanctioned Sweetbush. In his nightmares, he was still crammed under that bench in the tunnel they’d used as their escape route, waiting for someone to haul him out and thrust a gun in his face.“I’m a botanist,” he said, reaching for Bors’s hands in the dark, “not a spy or an adventurer. It would be interesting to find out if the stories are true, yeah.” And he was always up for the pure physical challenge of exploring the Wastes—braving the elements, as opposed to braving gun-toting soldiers. “But the risks, Bors. Is the hope of screwing over this Karishkov even remotely worth it?”“I told you. I’m not trying to screw over anybody.” Bors let Valgund’s hands enfold his, his body pliant, but his tone remained defensive. “This isn’t about a personal grudge. If someone as powerful as Karishkov is compromised in any way, that’s a threat to the whole Republic.”What they’d done to the Sweetbush threatened the Republic, too—or at least the Republic as it currently functioned. But Bors didn’t seem to want to face that fact. Valgund wondered if what he really wanted, in his heart of hearts, was simply to spend more time with Aleks and the others; to breathe in the fresh, wild air of youthful rebellion.He drew the spy’s thin form to him and kissed him—first on the chin, awkward in the dark, then on the lips. When Bors trembled, Valgund moved away, but Bors quickly returned. He caught Valgund’s bottom lip between his own and bit down just hard enough to make Valgund reach hungrily for him.“I’ll tell Aleks about this if you insist,” Valgund said when their mouths parted. “I’ll ask him about the logistics of this ‘reconnaissance.’ I can’t say I mind anything that involves rambling around the wilderness. But, Bors . . .”Bors was breathing heavily, his body coming tremblingly alive under Valgund’s hands. “What is it, Gunsha?”He rarely used the nickname, and the intimacy made Valgund’s mind short-circuit. He released his breath in a gasp, tense with the sudden need to push Bors down on the cave floor and rip his far-too-many clothes off.That way Bors had of surrendering in a single dramatic gesture, throwing his head back with his whole body trembling like a bow-string—Valgund had been dreaming of it for months now. He needed a taste.“Sometimes it’s better to let the Republic take care of itself, love,” he whispered into his friend’s ear. “Sometimes it’s better to think of your own safety and, uh, happiness.”
Our happiness. We could be happy, just us here in our cave doing exactly as we please, and damn the Republic and Karishkov and all of it.
But Valgund couldn’t seem to say that part out loud. He settled for silencing any future protests from Bors with a lengthy, hot, wet kiss.
July, Year 371
“The only good thing about hiking in the rain,” Bors Dartán said, prodding the fire with a stick, “is that it’s nice warming up afterward.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Valgund Linnett slipped an arm out of his voluminous rain jacket and draped it over his companion’s shoulder, bringing their shivering bodies close together.
They were in their favorite cave in the highlands above the vacation villas—really just a deep crevice in the side of a cliff with a soft earth floor and a gap in the roof to serve as a chimney. Bors still tended to balk at meeting in Gersha’s villa, though it was practically unoccupied most of the time. They’d settled on this as a compromise well suited to warmer weather.
Bors flinched at Valgund’s contact, making Valgund draw back. “I’m sorry. Was that too forward?”
“No!” Bors edged back toward Valgund, his jaw set. “After all we’ve already done . . . no. It’s just kind of a shock, you know? After those months in the city.”
Valgund didn’t need to be told why physical contact was a shock. Like Bors, he spent most of his time alone. “It’s okay,” he said as Bors scooted himself determinedly into the shelter of the jacket, pressing his side to Valgund’s. “We don’t have to jump back into anything. We can take it slow—or not at all.”
Bors rested his head on Valgund’s shoulder. Despite the determined performance of affection, his whole bird-thin body was still tense. “You know that I . . . like you.”
“I like you, too.” Why did this feel so much like an awkward schoolboy romance? Valgund had always expected to graduate eventually to some kind of confident sexual maturity. But not everyone could be like Tilrey, he supposed. “That’s why I want you to feel comfortable.”
Bors relaxed a fraction. “I do.”
Valgund wrapped his arm back around Bors’s shoulders and reached up, very carefully, to stroke the spy’s hair. “When I got your message, I hoped it wasn’t an emergency. Still no sign that Int/Sec knows what we did in the Sanctioned Sweetbush?”
Bors shook his head, his hair tickling Valgund’s collarbone. “Not a peep. Everything seems normal. I suspect the Sweetbush staff is covering up the sabotage—if they even know yet themselves.”
That was a relief. “I’m still meeting with the Northmen every few ten-days, the way we agreed.” Valgund said. “They haven’t seen any unusual activity at the bases they monitor.”
“Good. Have you seen Aleks?”
Bors always pronounced that name with an intensity he couldn’t hide. His little crush on the Northmen’s leader amused Valgund, though it certainly helped to know Aleks was extremely taken.
“Only once,” he said. “He usually sends Lasha with one of the others.”
Their small fire crackled, sending sparks whirling up to disappear through the crack in the rock ceiling. It was dark in here, with a musty smell of earth and decay, but through the openings came the flat white light of a rainy day without a sunset.
“I brought a message that needs to go directly to Aleks,” Bors said, his voice faltering a little. “From Einara.”
“Is she still scheming in the Brothel, then?” Valgund kept his own tone light. He’d never met this Einara and wasn’t sure he trusted her, though Bors and Aleks seemed to.
“She has some intelligence that’s very interesting,” Bors said with professional admiration. He disentangled himself from Valgund and fumbled in his backpack, from which he snagged a slip of paper that he unfolded in the firelight.
It was a printed map of Oslov with annotations in Bors’s handwriting. Five sets of coordinates had been marked—all of them deep in the Wastes, far from any mapped settlement. One was practically in the Southern Range, two in the far north above Redda, and two in between, with one of those right on the coast.
“What are they?”
“She won’t tell me.” Bors shot a sidelong glance at Valgund as if trying to gauge his friend’s likelihood of arguing. “She won’t even say where she got the coordinates. Only that she wants us to team up with the Northmen and investigate each of these sites. From what she did say and what I already know, I’m guessing some are covert military installations—surveilled and/or guarded. Others might be ruins, facilities that haven’t been used in decades or more.”
Valgund didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Missile silos?”
Bors shook his head. “Those are much more closely guarded. Nobody just lets slip their locations, and I’m guessing that’s how she got this intel—Brothel patrons with loose lips. No. I think we’re looking at a map of Redda’s nervous exoskeleton.”
“Excuse me?”
Bors refolded the paper and pressed it into Valgund’s hand. “You’re going to memorize the coordinates and then burn this. Show Aleks the general area of each one on a map, but keep the exact locations to yourself.”
“But what are they?” Valgund asked, exasperated. Sabotaging the Sweetbush had been a test of his skill and a good deed for the health of the forest, his friend, and (less importantly) the Republic. But he had no idea what a “nervous exoskeleton” was or why they should do reconnaissance on it, particularly if it was heavily guarded.
“It’s something we talk about in Int/Sec,” Bors said in his old superior way. “Sort of a legend—well, maybe more of a reality if you have the right clearance level. I don’t.” He leaned up against Valgund again. “Back in the early days, Whyberg and his fellow Councillors designed Redda’s infrastructure with a series of external failsafe switches. Back then, there were still factions of Feudals who could have overwhelmed the city. They outnumbered us, but they had no understanding of our tech. Using the failsafes, which were located in the Wastes, the Council could shut down the city—power, water, ventilation—and make it useless to invaders.”
“And potentially freeze and starve everybody in it,” Valgund noted. He’d heard similar stories from his long-ago Hargist friends about magical terminals hidden somewhere that you could use to sabotage the whole city. When he was eighteen or nineteen, the notion of such power was thrilling. Now he could only think of the suffering it would cause.
“I understand why the Northmen would be interested in locating this nervous exoskeleton,” he said. “They seem to want to stick it to modern civilization and live like Feudals themselves. But you?”
“If we do this, the purpose would be research only,” Bors said. “A covert test of the city’s security.”
“Does Einara know that?”
“I doubt she even knows what she wants at this point, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the expert, and this is my operation now.” Bors picked up a stick and poked nervily at the fire, sending tiny flames shooting upward. “I mean, obviously I have no intention of sabotaging Redda.”
“Of course not.” But, judging by Bors’s tone, Valgund wondered if he secretly liked the idea. “Think of it, though,” he said experimentally. “You could hold the whole Sector hostage. Int/Sec and everyone there who’s ever treated you like shit. You could threaten to turn off the power and watch them sweat.”
Bors’s body had tensed up again. “I would never do that.”
“I’m not saying you would. I just wondered.” How aware you are of your own contradictions.
“You think that’s who I am? Some petty scorned functionary out for revenge?” Bors sighed. “I guess you can’t help wondering. But if I tell you what I’m really after, you mustn’t breathe a word to Aleks or any of the Northmen. Do you swear?”
Valgund had an uneasy feeling in his gut, but he said, “I swear.”
“Do you remember what happened on the way back from the Sweetbush in February? The patrol skimmer that stopped us in the woods and then let us go?”
“After the commanding officer talked privately with Aleks.” Valgund’s mind had been worrying at the mystery for months. “If Aleks were an Int/Sec mole, though, the two of us would be in cells by now.”
“He’s not a mole,” Bors snapped. “I’d know.”
Then, as if regretting his harshness, he slipped an arm around Valgund’s waist. “You’re right to wonder, though. There are all sorts of undercover agents, and some of them play long, long games. Like I told you back then, Aleks has protection, and I want to know whose. Right now, I think the best candidate is Niko Karishkov.”
“The Councillor? The one who was your mentor in Int/Sec?” It had something to do with Bors’s unfortunate history with Tilrey, but Valgund had forgotten the specifics.
“That’s the one,” Bors said with a grim relish.
They passed a flask of hot tea back and forth as Bors told Valgund everything he knew about the former head of Int/Sec. As a young man, Karishkov had spent years working undercover in Thurskein to root out Dissidents among the workers. His background was nothing special, but his success put him on a meteoric career path that included marriage to one of then-Council Majority Leader Verán’s nieces. After serving as director of Int/Sec, Karishkov was elected to the Council, where everyone expected him to become head of the Int/Sec Committee.
For whatever reason, he ended up withdrawing his bid for that role, but he remained one of the most prominent voices on national security. And he claimed to be a particular expert on the Free Northmen, citing them as a threat whenever someone proposed relaxing restrictions in Thurskein or Karkei.
“And yet,” Bors said, “Int/Sec has repeatedly arrested Aleks, with ample cause, and released him. What you saw was far from the first time. Director Gelmedyn is deep in Karishkov’s pocket, so I know Karishkov is behind this. The question is, why?”
Valgund gazed into the glowing coals. He could barely discern the outlines of Bors’s face, only feel his friend’s warm breath in the air. “It’s certainly a mystery,” he agreed. “But is it worth breaking into these highly classified sites, most of which would take hellacious journeys just to access, so you can find out whether Karishkov is willing to throw Aleks in a cell or not? Especially if we’re likely to be occupying the cells right next to him?”
“I didn’t say anything about breaking in,” Bors said. “Research. Reconnaissance. Aren’t you curious?”
Valgund didn’t want to admit that he got the shudders remembering their flight from the Sanctioned Sweetbush. In his nightmares, he was still crammed under that bench in the tunnel they’d used as their escape route, waiting for someone to haul him out and thrust a gun in his face.
“I’m a botanist,” he said, reaching for Bors’s hands in the dark, “not a spy or an adventurer. It would be interesting to find out if the stories are true, yeah.” And he was always up for the pure physical challenge of exploring the Wastes—braving the elements, as opposed to braving gun-toting soldiers. “But the risks, Bors. Is the hope of screwing over this Karishkov even remotely worth it?”
“I told you. I’m not trying to screw over anybody.” Bors let Valgund’s hands enfold his, his body pliant, but his tone remained defensive. “This isn’t about a personal grudge. If someone as powerful as Karishkov is compromised in any way, that’s a threat to the whole Republic.”
What they’d done to the Sweetbush threatened the Republic, too—or at least the Republic as it currently functioned. But Bors didn’t seem to want to face that fact. Valgund wondered if what he really wanted, in his heart of hearts, was simply to spend more time with Aleks and the others; to breathe in the fresh, wild air of youthful rebellion.
He drew the spy’s thin form to him and kissed him—first on the chin, awkward in the dark, then on the lips. When Bors trembled, Valgund moved away, but Bors quickly returned. He caught Valgund’s bottom lip between his own and bit down just hard enough to make Valgund reach hungrily for him.
“I’ll tell Aleks about this if you insist,” Valgund said when their mouths parted. “I’ll ask him about the logistics of this ‘reconnaissance.’ I can’t say I mind anything that involves rambling around the wilderness. But, Bors . . .”
Bors was breathing heavily, his body coming tremblingly alive under Valgund’s hands. “What is it, Gunsha?”
He rarely used the nickname, and the intimacy made Valgund’s mind short-circuit. He released his breath in a gasp, tense with the sudden need to push Bors down on the cave floor and rip his far-too-many clothes off.
That way Bors had of surrendering in a single dramatic gesture, throwing his head back with his whole body trembling like a bow-string—Valgund had been dreaming of it for months now. He needed a taste.
“Sometimes it’s better to let the Republic take care of itself, love,” he whispered into his friend’s ear. “Sometimes it’s better to think of your own safety and, uh, happiness.”
Our happiness. We could be happy, just us here in our cave doing exactly as we please, and damn the Republic and Karishkov and all of it.
But Valgund couldn’t seem to say that part out loud. He settled for silencing any future protests from Bors with a lengthy, hot, wet kiss.
Chapter End Notes
I’ve got a couple of deadlines slowing my writing down right now, but should be able to get another chapter up next week. Thanks for reading! <3 <3
Chapter End Notes
I’ve got a couple of deadlines slowing my writing down right now, but should be able to get another chapter up next week. Thanks for reading! <3 <3
I’ve got a couple of deadlines slowing my writing down right now, but should be able to get another chapter up next week. Thanks for reading! <3 <3