The start of that fic that freaked Saquelsis out..

[Amelia]

...but with which he is okay now.

Here is the passage that was the inspiration for this fic. (The fic isn't finished yet, btw...i've got the plot all mapped out.)

The excerpt is from TAS, when Mrs. Coulter is piloting the intention craft towards the Clouded Mountain.
It reminded her of a certain abominable heresy, whose author was now deservedly languishing in the dungeons of the Consistorial Court. He had suggested that there were more spatial dimensions than the three familiar ones, that on a very small scale, there were up to seven or eight other dimensions, but that they were impossible to examine directly. He had even constructed a model to show how they might work, and Mrs. Coulter had seen the object before it was exorcised and burned. Folds within folds, corners and edges both containing and being contained: its inside was everywhere and its outside was everywhere else. The Clouded Mountain affected her in a similar way...

[Amelia]

I felt so sorry for the poor scientist fellow that I had to write about him.

[Amelia]

"Rhyalise!" Everett Habor's cries were muffled by the thick cement walls of the inquisitorial cell. "Rhya! Rhyalise, my Rhyalise, Rhya!"
The inquisitor's robes were too dark to be a felicitous red. They were decorated with black trim and gave him an imperious and frightening air, especially when they were swept into attitudes of cruelty and contempt. His spotted hyena dæmon raised her hackles and made low, threatening noises which permeated the air in shades of fog and poison. Nearby, a gaunt-faced young alethiometrist-friar scribbled upon a sheaf of paper, ocassionally staring fixedly at what looked like a gold and crystal compass. Every time the man cried out, the friar's whole body gave an involuntary twitch, and his frog dæmon darted inside the comfort of his monastic robes. His name was Pavel Rasek, and his dæmon was terrified of what was happening to the dæmon of the accused. Fra Pavel gritted his teeth and focused at the needle spinning underneath its crystalline lid. He must become accustomed to this sort of thing if he was to become an able member of the Church's Consistorial Court.
"Recant!" The inquisitor spat. The hyena dæmon crouched at his feet, her body coiled like a spring.
"Recant your heretical expositions, or else suffer the consequences!" In one hand he shook a bunch of paper which was bound together, covered in faded black type; in the other he clenched a most extraordinary little model. It was made of celluloid, and looked like an infinite and impossible knot. It was the universe...
Everett Habor was suddenly racked by great shuddering gasps; he clutched at his heart, his face contorted with pain. His pale brown hair was ravaged, and the spectacles framing his grey eyes were askew. He huddled against the unyielding cement corner of the cell, his arms wrapped around his thin frame, his hand pressed against his heart as though he were trying in vain to keep something inside.
The inquisitor waited ferociously, his cold eyes directed piercingly towards the accused. Pavel Rasek stole a glance at the tortured Scholar and wished he hadn't; his dæmon went into a fresh bout of fright, burrowing deeper into his robes.
In the corridor outside, two scrivener-friars negotiated with a large steel cage. Inside was Rhyalise, the Scholar's owl dæmon. Her eyes were the most intense part of her; within their pale amber depths was contained wisdom and exceptional intellect, but at present they radiated primal, life-deep desperation. Every feather stood on end; every inch of her, claw and wing and beak, was fighting to get out of this steel prison. "Everett!" she shrieked. She flung her grey-brown-tawny wings against the bars of the cage. Down feathers floated through the air.
The Scholar felt the impact of feather on cage and moaned. He gazed at the inquisitor through pain-filled eyes and gasped, "Stop! Stop it, please, oh, stop it! Stop pulling! Rhyalise!"
The inquisitor smiled hungrily. "Are you ready to recant, Habor?" Fra Pavel soothed his dæmon and glued his eyes to the Scholar.
Everett Habor did not respond. Perhaps he was thinking of how much work, all his life as an experimental theologian, had gone into the great theory, the theory of manifolds and multiple dimensions...he looked at the treatise, his treatise, which was crumpled in the inquisitor's fist.
The inquisitor glared at the thin man slumped against the wall. He went to the locked door of the cell and called to the friars through a window: "All right, three more feet!"
Rhyalise shrieked a fearsome owl cry and fought more fiercely than ever, but her complacent captors obliged and carried her three feet down the hallway: three more feet away from Everett. Their bond stretched taut.
Everett screamed, a long wordless utterance of pain and longing and terror.
Pavel could not concentrate on the experimental theological question he was supposed to be asking the alethiometer. He held his dæmon so tightly she cried out.
The inquisitor towered over the Scholar. "This is the last time! Do you recant?"
From afar, Rhyalise pleaded with the friars. "Let us go! Please!" For answer, the friars shifted her two more inches farther down the corridor.
That was the catalyst. The feeling was unbearable, and Everett choked on his words: "I recant!"
The inquisitor sighed, an almost innocent sigh of contentment, as though he were warming himself by a hearth. He turned on his heel and spoke directly to Pavel.
"Fra Pavel, please send for Father McPhail."
The alethiometrist packed up the tools of his trade with deft, pale fingers and took the key from the inquisitor without meeting his eyes. He unlocked the cell, leaving the bereaving inquisitor and bereft Scholar behind.
He returned a few minutes later in the company of two people. One of them was Father McPhail, the president of the Consistorial Court of Discipline; the other was a woman with lustrous, slightly wavy black hair and an entrancing demeanor.

[Amelia]

((Who's the woman with black hair and an entrancing demeanor? Everybody gets three guesses... ;D))

[StephXZed]

Ooh... creepy... but there's something wrong with the ' and "" symbols... makes it hard ta read.

[Jalada]

Agreed. Can you do a find and replace on it all?

I could just repost it (I've done a F + R myself on it just now in notepad).

But I wont, 'cos it's probably spamming the forum.

Creepy indeed.

[Amelia]

ok, i fixed it now! Dunno what was wrong with it before...

So tell me, how is the writing? is it good? Is it a good portrayal of the Church in Lyra's world, etc.?

[Jalada]

Amelia said:

ok, i fixed it now! Dunno what was wrong with it before...

So tell me, how is the writing? is it good? Is it a good portrayal of the Church in Lyra's world, etc.?

I think it's v. good indeed I'd like to see when it's finished Amelia

[StephXZed]

Yeah, it had great detail. Which made it spooky. Great fic to read on Halloween. Is it up on fanfiction.net?

[Amelia]

thanks everyone!

I'll finish it soon, then I'll put it on fanfiction.net.
Yeah, I usually write with a lot of detail...more detail than plot or character development. Heh. I can never understand how playwrights do it...so little detail, it's all implied in the character psychology and plot.

[Jalada]

Well it's very good. Please let us all know when you finish it. I don't read fan-fics much, but I like the sound of that one

[Amelia Not Logged In]

*works*

[Amelia]

Here is more. It starts exactly where the first part left off.

She hung behind the Father, so as to show respect for his superiority, but one could tell that she was very curious and not at all simpleminded, unlike the wordless nuns who acted as secretaries in the Tower Court.
Father McPhail strode briskly towards Everett, the woman following quickly behind, her hands full of notes. She took a fine pen from the breast pocket of her tailored skirt suit and jotted something down.
Father McPhail stood over Everett.
“So you have decided to denounce your heresies and turn to the way of God! We want it on paper. Sign this.” He motioned the woman forward and said curtly, “Miss Coulter, the documents, please.”
The dark-haired woman, whose name was Marisa, came forward. She cast a calculating glance at the Scholar. She felt no pity for the man with the mild grey eyes who had his head in his hands. A smile flickered over her face as she envisioned the righteous suffering he had endured. His atrocious heresies were almost beyond the Church’s power to absolve.
She regarded the waiting President for a moment, his fierce, chiseled face expectant. Chastened, she shuffled through the leaves of paper until she came upon a fine white sheet inscribed with dour words, stamped with the Church’s crest. She set it upon a small steel table at one corner of the room and distastefully assisted a nervous Fra Pavel in hoisting Everett Habor under the arms and guiding him over to a chair next to the table. All the energy had been drained out of him, but he tried to support his own weight. His eyes showed his fear, laced by a weighty feeling of defeat. You can still turn back, a voice inside his head urged. Don’t do this.
No! came another voice. It was Rhyalise. Everett, please, do whatever they want, my heart is being torn out, Everett, please-
He sobbed aloud. Trying to ignore the tugging feeling in his heart and the pervasive sense of longing, he composed himself and straightened his wire-rimmed spectacles. He compulsively flicked a lock of hair off his forehead, a nervous gesture, as he peered at the confession form as though it was a paper of experimental theology.
Without taking his eyes from the sheet he wordlessly held out his hand. Miss Coulter jabbed the pen between his fingers and his palm. Eyes closed, he said hoarsely, “What about my dæmon?”<br> The President said coolly, “After you have signed, of course.”

[Amelia]

The inquisitor nodded and smiled callously.
Everett sighed silently. You were right, Rhya, he thought to her. Suddenly he felt as though he could not breathe. His heartstrings were surely snapping, all the air being squeezed out of his lungs...
Alarmed, the President threw open the cell door’s window and cried to the friars, “No, no farther! That’s enough!” Miss Coulter’s dæmon, a golden-haired monkey, looked enthralled. The friars shouted apologies and carried the cage a bit closer.
Father McPhail shut the window heavily and stepped over to Everett. He regarded him with an air of undue patience, saying evenly, “Well, go on, then.” The stony lizard dæmon gripped the Father’s shoulder tightly with her small claws.
Everett turned his gaze from the President back to the table with the hateful piece of paper. He knew what it said before he even read it.

All who have erred and been mistaken in the Faith and, by the grace of the Authority, have since returned into the light of truth and the unity of Our Holy Magisterium, should well guard themselves that the Evil One did not drive them back and cause them to relapse into error and damnation.

Everett scanned the page for his name.

For this cause, I, Everett Habor, more commonly called Scholar Habor of Gabriel College, a miserable sinner, after that I had recognized the snares of error in which I was held, and after that, by the grace of the Authority, I had returned to our Holy Magisterium, in order that it may be seen that, not pretending but with a good heart and good will, I have returned thereto...

He was not in error, his treatise was as real and true experimental theology as had been seen in a long time, and he knew it...

I confess that I have most grievously sinned, in committing the most atrocious heresies by making false declaratons concerning the nature of Reality, conceived by the Holy Authority; in attempting to seduce others into my ways of sin and corruption; in believing foolishly and lightly; in making superstitious divinations; in blaspheming the Authority and his Kingdom; in authoring a heretical treatise on the nature of Reality and constructing an unholy object based upon heretical theories.

He had not sinned. He had done nothing...

And upon all these things aforesaid I submit to the correction, disposal, amendment, and entire decision of our Holy Magisterium and of your good justice.

What justice? Was this justice? What would they do to him?

Also I swear and promise to you...

There followed a long list of names.

...to my Lord Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to the memory of the Holy Father Calvin the Pope of Geneva...

More names...

...and to you, my Lords, the reverend Father in God my Lord the President of the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the religious person, Father Makepwe, Deputy of my Lord the Inquisitor of the Faith, as my Judges..

The final promises that the page coldly wrested from him...

...that never, by any exhortation or other manner, will I return to the aforesaid errors, from which it had pleased Our Lord to deliver and take me; but always I will remain in union with our Holy Magisterium and in the obedience of the Consistorial Court of Discipline. And this I say, affirm, and swear, by God Almighty and by the Holy Gospels.

He was almost finished...

And in sign of this, I have signed this schedule with my signature.

Everett took the pen and signed his name, Everett Galen Habor. He wrote in uncharacteristic handwriting; instead of the usual plain, dark griffonage he had used ever since he first took notes at a Scholarly lecture, he wrote in a large and looping script with strange serifs over the E and G.

[Amelia]

I'm not as fluent in inquisitorial bureaucratspeak as I look...the recantation is in fact a doctored translation of the document Joan of Arc was made to sign. I also had a look at Galileo's recantation.