The Monolith
2020-12-15
The jungle greenery parted in a peeling cascade. A slight figure wielding a heavy bush axe stepped gingerly through the gap. In the sun filled equatorial atmosphere, it was hard to be sure, but sometimes her ankle length hair seemed to be blue. Most of the time, though, it was green.
Her hair, dressed in two long pigtails sprouting from either side of her head, followed serenely through behind her. It moved with a perfect awareness of her actions, always staying out of her face and mouth, never resting heavily on her bare shoulders. In some ways, this was probably the least remarkable thing about her.
She was dressed in a bizarre variant of a military-style jungle camoflage uniform. Instead of a tunic, she wore a patterned halter-top that was somehow secured at the neck with bright glowing lines of light. Half-sleeves covered her lower arms, flaring out over her hands, cuffed with more ribbons of light. Her trousers were more like long shorts or plus-fours, gathered at the cuff. As her hair wavered between colours, the camo patterns followed, almost exactly a second after.
Her black stockings might not be unusual, except for the intermittent lines of light that flashed through their ribbing. She wore very practical heavy boots that were a very impractical bright green colour. The bush axe, however, that was earthen hafted and solid, with a bright steel blade streaked with the blood of creeper and branch.
Her skin shone brightly under the thick sun, not from sweat, but from some internal energy. This wasn't unreasonable, because although she very much resembled a sixteen year old human girl, she wasn't one.
She had emerged in a grassy clearing. The ground sloped gently away from the perimeter to a bowl shaped depression. The depression was paved with fine shaped marble blocks, bleached bone white by the sun. In the geometrical centre of the clearing, the depression, the paving, was a three sided black obelisk.
It was mostly featureless, sides polished to the mirror finish of the very best pianos, darkly reflecting the bright grass and stone. The edges where the three sides met were blunted into facets themselves. Inscrutable symbols were chased up them. Although smoothly cut, they seemed to... wriggle... in the noonday heat.
"At last..." she gasped. "The Triskene."
She tossed her hair behind herself and let the bush axe fall.
"Now, I'm going to get out of here."
She stepped from the forest to the sward.
As if she had tripped some invisible wire, the air suddenly vibrated with a harsh bell tone. She lurched back, pulling her intruding foot after her, but the moment couldn't be taken back.
The tolling lengthened and deepened into a rumbling, grinding noise. The paving stones shook in sympathy. And shaking, they began to move.
Tumbling and sliding over each other, the topmost layer of stones gathered in a clump between her and the monolith. Then they shook, and somehow compacted, and lurched up into the form of a massive humanoid figure. Not just humanoid, but an exaggerated caricature of a man with a massive chest and heavily muscled arms balanced on almost cartoonishly thin legs. He was adorned with a flowing kilt of liquid pebbles and a headdress of stone splinters crowning his craggy face.
His right hand held a long sword whose keen edge caught and held the sun, nevermind that it was made of rocks. His left grasped a short truncheon in a reverse grip.
As fluidly as flesh, the stone mouth grimaced and the figure bellowed wordless challenge to the interloper.
The girl-not-girl, though startled, wasn't caught off guard.
With a quick flip of her withdrawing foot, she caught the falling brush axe and reversed its trajector back to her open hand. With only a short pause to brace herself, she leapt to the attack.
The stone monster, twice her height, flowed to meet her, sword upraised.
Mouth crooked in a snarl, she spun under his downstroke, the twin bolts of her hair flashing like blue lighting. The blade of the bush axe suddenly grew from the joins of the monster's wrist as if it had grown there. She flipped up and around the haft of the axe like a gymnast, levering the joint apart.
Rock fragments flew. The stone sword crashed point down in the grass, still clutched by the severed hand.
The guardian roared again in frustration and brought its left hand across in a blinding arc. The truncheon smashed into the fragile shield of the hastily raised bush axe and launched her into the air.
Despite the force of the impact and the speed of her flight, she didn't crash to the ground. Rather, she /twisted/ in midair and landed springily with one half of the smashed axe in either hand.
The monster roared again and reached down into the paved median with the stump of its right arm. From the lower layer of pavers, it drew forth a new hand, holding a new weapon -- a long rocky trident.
Rapidly evaluating her situation, the green haired girl threw out her arms before her, holding the shattered shafts of the axe in line, but about half a metre apart. And then she sang.
A high, pure piercing note. The exact opposite of the heavy death knell that heralded her intrusion into the clearing. As she held the note, she added new tones and harmonics. Lines and filaments of light sprang from her hands to enfold the broken wood, to bridge and extend it, transforming it into a shimmering spear of eye-burning intensity.
She sidestepped the splintered fork of the trident, ducking under and piercing the guardian's sculpted chest. The light fled from the spear and into the massive body.
For a moment, it hung frozen above her.
Then, suddenly, every feature, every seam was outlined in that blazing light. Like frost in the winter, it levered open every crack in the unnatural body in a splintering explosion.
Dead white rocks littered the grass. The trident had snapped in half.
The blue haired girl walked past the shambles to the monolith, unopposed.
She placed her naked palm against the nearest smooth glassy side. A fleeting kirlian raced up and down the facet from her touch.
"I'm done here."
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