217. Brightfire Blasts the Train

 217. Brightfire Blasts the Train

I bent down to fetch the sack and the basket that were lying at Uncle Gen’s feet, and before I could rise, a second  pair of legs appeared before me. It was winter, and cold enough to foretell snow, but these legs were bare below the knee, though their  feet were  in boots. I guessed that when I looked up I would see Uncle Brightfire, who only dresses properly for formal occasions and who goes everywhere else in the bermudas and T-shirts he uses when he works at his forge. He even had his leather apron on.

Uncle Brightfire and Uncle Gentlerain looked at each other for a few seconds. Uncle Gentlerain blinked first, and Uncle Brightfire took that as a sign they were going to interact. He shook his leonine mane of blue and blazing orange hair.  

“Now what?” he said.

“You sent that train to Papa?” Uncle Gen gestured with a nod towards the train there was lying in the grass behind Uncle Fi.

Uncle Fi turned around and looked at the train and said, “The train I sent was red. And it didn’t look like a ********snake. It had fancy wheels with solid gold spokes. The windows did look like ********diamonds.”

“Now it´s green and it slithers. And it doesn’t go choo choo. It  hisses. Ask Botolph what he’s done with the gold. He’s been working on your train.”

What Uncle Fi said next I don’t think I need to repeat.He is frightfully illspoken and foulmouthed when upset. I would have to use a lot of asterisks and that would take time and by the time they were all in place you wouldn't understand much of the text anyway. But he ended a heated tirade calling Uncle Gen an idiot.

“I don’t know why I listen to you,” he said. “We could have put an end to Botolph’s tenure ages ago. All we had to do was invade Papa’s golf course and play a footall match there. And then, when all the grass was kicked up, and we'd made new holes, I could have razed the rest of the place, bushes and whatever. Papa would have returned the gardens to us ipso facto so we could play there instead, you mincing ninny! Just so he could play in peace that morning and if we promised not to touch his course again.”

“One can’t do things that way,” snapped Uncle Gen.

Shaking his head, Uncle Fi turned to me for confirmation that his brother was stupid.

“Say that uncle of yours is a ******* prude!”

I didn’t move a muscle of my face. Or breathe a word.

“Like we aren’t dealing with a potential murderer. So the blasted gnome didn’t like my train. Why not?”

“Because it wasn’t poisonous,” explained Uncle Gen. “Why else would anyone not?”

“What? What kind of an objection is that?”

“It is poisonous now. The green paint on it is loaded with arsenic. I’d bet my throat on that.”

“No kidding? He went to all the trouble of painting the ******thing with *******poison? You’re right, he’s not just a ******* criminal. He’s ******* insane. Maybe he is to be pitied. And now what are we to *******do about this?”

“I want the train returned to its former state. But I don’t know how to get rid of the arsenic without going near it. Do you?”

“Like we are going to step in there and scrape the paint off with a spatula,” said Uncle Fi.

He was pretty much into metals and other elements so it didn’t surprise me he might know what to do. But what he did had nothing to do with what we expected of him. He rubbed his hands and a huge ball of fire dropped from them and rolled  all the way to the train and reduced it to a longish puddle of metal with a sonorous explosion.

“No!” cried Uncle Gen. “No, no, no! Now we may have arsine gas all over the place!”

“So what? You're not going to step in there, are you? And the crazy  gnome won’t mind having arsenic in his air and earth. Always supposing the poison has survived me. You’ll have a new train in an hour, Gen. But  do bawl the gnome out. I don’t want to have to make a third.”

“It’s probably in the fumes in the air,” said Uncle Gen, staring around him for signs of this. “Go, Arley! Get out of here. This place might not be safe until I’ve made it rain.”

“Will you be alright?”

Uncle Gen nodded. “Fi and I will be fine. Go. Don’t breathe till you’re out of here.”

As I left I heard Uncle Fi yell, “You ****** wretch! You aren’t going to rain on me! Your mother…isn’t mine. Oops. I didn’t mean that. Yes, she is. But don’t you *******dare cloudburst on me! Stand off or I'll boil you!”

I transported myself to Minced Forest because I felt it would be easier to get to the Range of the Fauns from there. Vinny saw me when I appeared in the forest, we spoke and he decided he would like to accompany me and I said he could, after swearing him to secrecy. The Leafies know that Epon exists but have never been known to mention him to anyone aside from their own in any of their conversations. The Leafies are so many that among them all they know almost everything that is going on, but above all they know how to ignore most of what they know. And I think I have left clear before how difficult they can be to question.

Mons, Pons and Fons are the three Thorn Brothers that frequent Minced Forest, because their farm is on the side of a mountain that rises where the forest ends. Their other brothers, including Bronze, live much further up and even in other mountains. Vinny said he hadn’t seen Mons, Pons and Fons in days and that this probably was because they had gone up the mountains to spend the holidays with the rest of their family. When we reached their farm and saw that there was in effect no one at home and that the animals there were caring for themselves, I thought that Vinny was probably right in his guess. We asked the animals, and they agreed.  

It began to snow, and Vinny found refuge in the fold of my cap. I struggled up the mountain, not wanting to fly because the wind was being too obnoxious and I could have difficulties with my wings flying against it. By the time we got to Bronze’s farm the ground was all white. Fortunately, the snow did not turn into ice before we rang the bell at the gate. Once inside the large cave that housed Bronze’s numerous family, it did not take me long to give out the gifts. The basket of food I handed to Bronze’s wife, Cidra, directly, and she herself, laughing and smiling and ovbiously delighted, drew out delicacy after delicacy, filling the large kitchen table with all of these foods. Her children, and Jane´s kids too, stood round the table, some recognizing some of the foods and explaining to the rest what these things were and what they tasted like. Others, wide-eyed, were seeing them for the first time. From the sack, I myself extricated the gifts for the kids. These were mostly musical instruments of many kinds and materials for painters and sculptors. I know that Uncle Gen would have liked to send skateboards and scooters, but he’d had the tact to pick stuff the older fauns would approve of. The most applauded of the presents was an enormous pipe organ I needed much help to draw out of the sack.  

It was Fons Redthorn who volunteered to take me to see my brother, and he and Vinny and I left the cave which was sounding like an orchestra tuning up before a concert and threatening to blast into pandemonium what with the littler kids blowing horns and playing harmonicas and  shaking rattles and tambourines. I was glad it hadn’t snowed enough for the instruments to provoke an avalanche.

Before leaving, I asked  Bronze how Jane's kids were doing and he said all were doing very, very well save Manolus, the kid the Sherbananians had wanted to drive a stake into. Manolus was unbearable, and not because he had a trauma, so Bronze and Uncle Gen had already transported him somewhere else where they hoped he would fit in better. I must say all Jane’s kids did look happy, and some even had evolved physically. They were now goat-legged and pointed-eared  too, and there was no telling them from Bronze’s own descendants.

As we scaled the mountain where Epon was supposed to live, Fons gave me a bit of conversation, whenever he wasn’t concentrating on not falling off the rocks.  

“Now, you may have heard a lot of frightful stories about your brother,” said Fons to me. “Don’t believe most of them.”

“I’ve never heard anything about Epon except that he exists,” I said. “What are the frightful stories?”

“Oh, stuff like he is man-eating,” said Fons. “But there are no men anywhere near where he dwells for him to eat, so it’s not likely he does that.”

“When you say man does it include people like you and me?”

“Nah!” said Fons. “At least he’s never eaten any of us. Or tried to. He does have some dangerous pets, though.”

“Like what?”

“Like man-eating mares,” said Fons.

“Again I ask. Does man include people like you and me?”

“Not to my knowledge,” gasped Fons, nearly slipping off the mountain wall. I caught him amd pushed him back up as best I could and he said, “You’re lucky to have wings.”

“Well, I don’t think Uncle Gen would have sent me here without warning me Epon is dangerous,” I said.

“He has a mean streak, he does. And he is touchy and oversensitive and offended by everything. And he is sure to be mean to you because you are his brother and a nice, friendly-looking kid.”

“Great,” I said. “What have you heard aout Elysio? He’s the only reason I’m going to molest Epon.”

“Nothing. What is an Elysio?”

“Great,” I muttered.

“He won’t eat you,” whispered Vinny in my ear. “Though it might look like it.”   

“Better than better! Hold on fast,” I answered.