Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 47: Ryo

I have Zeke venture out over the sea to get a better grasp of what this killfire stuff is all about. It is the strangest sight to see flames spreading over the wave tops.

It doesn't look like a forest fire at all. The stuff looks more like electrical current moving through plasma, a sort of a luminescent fuzz.

It seems in no hurry to spread, either. It's not carried by the wind, but it does not move along an even front either. It has a fractal order to its leading edge, large spirals composed of small spirals and yet even smaller spirals, each backfilling to consume the unfilled spaces.

In its wake, the ocean looks steely and dead, like a stagnant pool in the bottom of a culvert. I have Zeke swing out deeper into the ocean to see how deep the killfire goes and we spot some dark objects near the trailing edge, about a couple miles behind the advancing front.

These dark things are spread out pretty far from each other. They kind of look like oil platforms, except they have no protuberances. These are sleek capsules with domed shells that taper at the edges to form sharp rims. Stilt-like legs carry their bodies high above the swells.

Automatons. So much for my theory that every bot the Makers build is anthropomorphic. These things look like giant crabs.

As we cruise along the front, we come upon a curiosity—a conspicuous gap in the mass of killfire a good mile in behind the leading edge. It's an island in the middle of the sea of deadness that seems to have evaded destruction. It still bears living trees and there are bugs taking refuge there. Schools of fish surge in from the sea and beach themselves in its sands, flopping in the sunlight, their scales glinting like a ring of sparklers.

I look at Dad.

"What's up with this place?"

We circle around, trying to figure out what's going on down there to keep the killfire at bay. I notice a shack or two. A boat dragged up onto its beach. It looks like someone has settled here.

"Look!"

Dad points behind us towards the crab-like automaton we had just passed. It has stopped walking and leans into the water, disappearing under the waves as we watch.

"Did that just dive or did it crash?"

"Looked like it just flopped over to me. That did not look intentional."

"Let's check out that island."

I have Zeke land in the very center, in an open space between the two shacks. The trees here look very much alive. Each one looks like a carefully crafted bonsai. Most are evergreens but there are some that look like fruit trees in bloom.

When Zeke's Petals open, we pop out for a look-see.

"I'm gonna have a look around. Keep an eye on that killfire, Dad. If it comes ashore, we're out of here. So don't wander off too far."

"Are you kidding me? I'm staying right here next to Zeke."

I circle around the huts, which are constructed up against these knobby bluffs of stone that look like hunks of old coral. They seem very much like traditional Japanese homes down to the sliding screens and tatami mats. I've never been to Japan. My only frame of reference is all of the anime I used to watch back in Fort Pierce.

The bluffs are perforated with caves and crannies, many of these nooks are carpeted with moss and fern.

"Yo! Anybody here?"

I pass a grave site on the edge of a thick grove of slender-needled pines. At least I think it's a grave. Maybe it's a Shinto shrine?

I feel eyes upon me. It's just a sensation that ripples the hairs on the back of my neck and I turn to see an Old One sitting on a stool tucked away in the shade of a grotto beneath a coral outcropping.