The Scot Monodont, 4545

What we know for certain about this pinnacle – or indeed about the many other contemporaneous constructions which adorn the 4th Archipelago – is very limited, whereas there are abundant speculative theories about their origins and purpose. The name given to the pinnacle is not supported by any documentary or archaeological evidence, but is assumed to have survived orally for centuries among the last of the Oil Age tribes that once inhabited this region. The name refers to that pre-Lapsarian, almost mythical people who may or may not have been responsible for these edifices, but whether to any specific ‘Scot’ or to the entire race is mere guesswork. The word ‘monodont’, meaning ‘single-toothed’, may simply refer to the visual appearance of the pinnacle, although Professor Ap Von Jürgin has proposed that the Scots worshipped strong, healthy teeth and that the pinnacle has totemic significance.

We do know that it is made from a relatively local sandstone and was erected between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago. How the immense quantity of material was transported has not been established. The suggestion that a complex network of avenues, metallic paths and waterways once existed in the area is of course complete fantasy – as is the even more bizarre notion that these were designed by visitors from another planet.

If the builders of the Monodont were, as is likely, influenced by the Symmetrian movement which dominated pre-Lapsarian cultures across Eurindis, then it was probably surrounded by four lower points: a portion of only one of these survives. Dr Jochin Yapert convincingly argues that what we now see was originally the central pinnacle, the peak of which was reached by an internal staircase. (A recent artist’s impression of what the whole may have looked like, bearing as it does an uncanny resemblance to the Mars Shuttle, has unfortunately encouraged the notion that interplanetary travellers once visited the 4th Archipelago.)

The shattered lump of marble at the base, says Dr Yapert, may be the remnant of a representation of some tribal dignitary or possibly a deity. This is visible only at low tide.

No attempt should be made to land on the Monodont, which is home to a colony of rare water pigeons.