Imbroglio

The birdsong surrounding the Museum of Unnatural History was drowned out by the uncertain whine of Vulen’s front door as it hung open a few inches above the grass.

This door was used to taking a lot of abuse, but the abuse had only gotten more numerous as time went on. The creaking started somewhere around 363, when a drunk Taryn Atma staggered into it in the middle of the night, her necromancy-induced atrophy causing her legs to buckle. Vulen started drinking more regularly after that encounter. Not that it had anything to do with Taryn: he had more than enough baggage to justify his alcoholism independently, thank you very much.

Still, he was growing more sensitive in his old age. It seemed that for every night Vulen spent with watery eyes and even more watery memories, the creak of that door would get a little louder, a little longer, a little more insistent.

Now, as he shoved an enormous crate of old armor through the threshold, the door all but wailed.

He slammed the crate down on the grass outside, next to three or so of its fellows. Each one was overflowing with items. Bits of armor, weapons, ammunition, religious charms, notebooks, field journals, books of psalms, buffer cloths, ceremonial robes, coiled ropes, weapon schematics, war table figurines, court attire, loose neckties—all of it was amassed into a disorganized, haphazard mess, split between the family of crates.

And much of it was accompanied by a queer symbol. A triangle with three lines, parallel to each side. The symbol was emblazoned on the chest plates of the armors, or branded into the hilts of weapons. It was stamped in the corner of each document, burned into the top of each book, painted on the bottom of every figurine—even sewn into the neckties. Most of them were subtle and faded; but stacked together as they were, it was hard not to notice.

Vulen paused a moment to study the crates, hands on his hips. There were still six more upstairs, but he’d just gotten a dizzy spell and was waiting for it to pass. He was almost relieved when he heard Sorrel coming down the stairs.

“Vulen? What’s going on?”

“Spring cleaning,” he snarled, voice hoarse from recent strain.

He heard Sorrel stop in the doorway. The door whined a little. “Are you drunk? Vulen, it’s three in the afternoon.”

“Time is a joke!” he said, wheeling around to deliver this discovery as perfunctorily as possible. He returned is attention to the crates, but then thought he’d better clarify and turned around to face Sorrel again. “I’ve met a god.”

Sorrel’s expression softened, but not in his usual lighthearted way. It was more like a look of pity. Vulen wondered why his dizziness was getting worse.

“Come on, we’d better get these inside,” his husband said delicately.

“No!” Vulen put his hands out.

“Vulen—”

“I’m going to sell it!” he announced. “I’m going to put the living room rug on the ground in the middle of the town square and I’m going to sit on it and I’m going to sell every last piece of horseshit in these crates!”

“You’re not—”

“And the—and it won’t matter because the people are… people are stupid! They won’t—they don’t pay attention to anything, so the symbol won’t matter. I bet they won’t—no one will even see it! Because nobody gives a shit about anything!”

“Love, you’re being really loud—”

Vulen clutched Sorrel’s shoulders. “This city is called a Museum and nobody even reads the placards!”

Before Vulen could go on to explain the importance of this, the scene was interrupted by a nearby call of greeting. Even in his drunken state, Vulen barely needed to turn his head to catch the proud set of demon horns in his peripherals.

“It seems I’ve come at a bad time,” Chakra called gruffly. To Sorrel: “Should we sober him up, then?”

“He’s going to be cranky either way,” Sorrel said with a shrug. “It’s nearly the full moon.”

“Are these Warden crates?” the demon asked, putting on the usual tone that he puts on whenever the subject of the Wardens comes up: slightly guarded, almost indifferent, very tight.

“You’re indifferent,” Vulen said into his shoulder, poking one of his broad muscles. He figured it was about time someone pointed it out.

Chakra sighed and ignored him. “Yes,” Sorrel said.

“Better get them inside,” Chakra muttered.

“No, I mean it,” Vulen said. “Really, like—you just hide everything.”

Chakra knelt and picked up one of the crates, shifting it under one arm. The entire gesture caused Vulen to stumble, because at some point he’d wrapped his arms around one of Chakra’s. He wasn’t sure how that had happened.

“With indifference,” he added.

“Upstairs?” Chakra asked. Sorrel nodded, moving to heft a crate on his own.

“That’s how you hide it,” Vulen continued.

“I can guard outside,” a fourth voice said, causing Vulen to spook so bad he nearly turned into a werewolf. He tried to look around to see who had spoken, but Chakra was heading inside now and took much bigger steps than Vulen remembered, so the elf had to focus all his energies on staying upright.

Due to a conflict at the staircase (the conflict being that Vulen couldn’t climb them), he had to stay on the landing. He stared up the stairs with murky eyes, frowning at Chakra’s shadow in the doorway. It was then that he realized what they were doing to the crates.

“Hey!” he called up. “I was going to sell that!”

“You don’t mean that, do you?” said a voice from the doorway.

Vulen spun around wildly and took a moment to rediscover his balance. It was the same voice from earlier. Vulen’s blurred vision struggled to focus the brown shape in front of him into Asta. She was leaning on the doorframe with both hands, watching him with one eye.

“You’re not really going to sell it,” she said. “You’re just saying that because of the drinks you’ve been having.”

“What do you know?” he accused. “You’re not allowed to drink.”

She blushed, her young face unable to hide the revelations of age. She averted her gaze. “I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t talk back.”

“Chakra showed me.”

Vulen took a moment to process this. He decided he should change the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be a dwarf now?”

“Aren’t you?” she said, very childishly, but then composed herself. “Someone did a Wish on me, I guess. Or maybe it was Weylyn’s magic. Something like that. I wasn’t paying attention. A lot happened after Akthos died.” She winced. “I shouldn’t say his name.”

“I don’t care,” Vulen said, missing her point entirely. He traversed his way carefully from the staircase banister to the doorframe, leaning heavily on the opposite side from Asta. He watched his hand grip and ungrip the wood, long fingers curling against the grain. The dark lines around the tendons betrayed his age.

“Where are you going?” she said, straightening up.

He didn’t respond. Instead he shoved his way through the doorway—Gods, had it been this bright outside earlier?—and knelt in the grass next to the remaining crates. He started rifling through them.

He was aware that Asta had followed him from behind, standing somewhere in the grass in front of the house. But she didn’t say anything. He shoved his arm into one of the crates, feeling something nick him but not particularly caring, and felt around until his fingers touched soft leather. He pulled it out.

In his hands was a flask; an old one from his childhood. There were leather bands around the top and bottom, both faded from age. After they’d brought the Wardens back, Vulen had carefully dyed the leather using the black pool in the Pyramid. He wondered if Naseel and the others still had those, wherever they were. He turned it over in his hands, then back again, back and forth.

“It’s a flask,” Asta said, in a way that she probably thought was very helpful.

“Here,” Vulen said. He held it out for her.

Asta frowned at it warily, like it had transformed into a weapon. “What?”

“I’m selling it.”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Free.”

Asta took it. She started turning it over in her hands, too, back and forth.

Chakra and Sorrel had come outside again, so Vulen stood up. Sorrel came up close to him and picked up one of the crates. He smiled at Vulen as he straightened up, face disarmingly close. “Can we go inside, love?”

“I don’t…” he trailed off uncertainly, mumbling.

Asta was about to say something to him, but Chakra put one enormous hand on her tiny shoulder. “Kas imbroglio,” he said. “Kallum.”

“Kallum” was Abyssal for “let’s go,” but Vulen didn’t understand the first part. He kept puzzling over the words in his head, certain he’d heard them correctly, but unable to translate them.

“Vulen?” Sorrel said.

“Huh? What?”

“Can we go inside?”

Vulen frowned. He made sure it was one of his best ones. But then he sighed. “Yeah. Kallum.”

Sorrel didn’t understand Abyssal. He just gave Vulen a funny smile before turning and carrying the crate inside. Vulen knelt to pick up the last one. By the time he was standing again, Chakra had already strode off.

“Thanks for the flask, Vulen,” Asta said shyly, before starting to walk away.

“What did Chakra say to you?” he said, a little sharper than he intended. “Kas…”

“Kas imbroglio. It’s a… sort of a saying. That demons have.”

“Which is?”

“Um… it’s a bit hard to explain…”

“Tell me,” he snapped, still cranky.

She fidgeted. “It’s for, um, relationships. It translates to sort of, like, ‘This is not your confusion.’ Demons say it to each other when they should let something go. Because it’s none of their business, or because getting involved would be bad, or… maybe just because it’s impossible to understand what’s happening.”

“Do you understand what’s happening to me?” Vulen said.

“No,” Asta admitted.

“I’m dying,” he informed her. He suddenly felt very sober.

They stared at each other for a moment. “Bol tekka!” Chakra cried from down the hill. Asta hesitated a moment. She hugged Vulen hastily before taking her leave.

Vulen went back inside with the crate. He spent a few moments struggling and cursing at the door while it whined at him. Finally it was closed. Sorrel could tell by Vulen’s eyes that he was lucid now. They kissed for a long moment.

“What was she saying to you?” Sorrel asked when he pulled away.

Vulen hesitated. Then he laughed. “Kas imbroglio, my love. Let’s get these back upstairs.”