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...The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman
"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, occasionally 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 MacPhail."
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.