The Great Work

This is an idea I’ve had sort of bubbling around in my head for a while, and I figured that Anthony’s Challenge on Inspiring the New was as good a reason to get it out there as any (though I completely failed on the deadline front, which was… not unexpected). I’m not sure really what I’d want to do with it, but at this stage I’m happy to just begin the vague, broad strokes of world-building. I’ve always found the interplay between science and magic fascinating, and I think there’s a whole universe of possibilities that this opens up, if you just twist your thinking a little.

Anyway – enjoy, and please leave a comment if you can.

-Tim

–

The Great Work

She awoke cold and shivering, to a world devoid of colour and life. Eyes, wide and vibrant green darted around, taking in a landscape of harsh white contours, and cold metallic surfaces. Lithe, toned muscles struggled against biting metal restraints and she whimpered, a faint plaintive noise, at once both oddly melodic and strangely haunting. Above her, a black orb swivelled down at the noise of her whimper, revealing a lidless and vast black lens that peered at her. In its unfathomable depths, a red light blinked steadily. She stared upwards in mute terror, frozen in a silent tableaux, unable to look away.

From somewhere, the sound of steady footsteps reached her thin, pointed ears. She looked aside from the orb as a panel in the white wall slide aside with a soft hiss. Through the door stepped a tall man, clad in more harsh white, a long coat that buttoned closely about the neck and reached down to trail on the floor. His head was shaven, and his eyes were hidden behind slim metal glasses that appeared as if fused to his yellow, veiny skin. He stepped up to his captive patient, bending at the waist to peer down at her, and bent his thin, almost lipless mouth in a poor imitation of a smile.

“Ah. You’re awake.”

She squirmed under the restraints, shut her eyes and began to whisper frantically, desperately, in a lilted sing-song language. The thin man knitted his non-existent eyebrows in confusion, and raised a hand to his mouth. “Computer: translate to EN-Western. Primary language: plane 393-X. Dominant dialect. Codename: Proudfaeyre.”

“..ddess, save me, Goddess, I beseech thee, Goddess, save m–”

She stopped, shocked, hearing and understanding her words anew in a foreign tongue. Her brilliant green eyes opened and fixed upon the man. He could see the unspoken question in them.

“A clever trick, yes? You understand me, don’t you? Our tongues are the same now, at least as long as we remain in this room. The exact specifics of it are, I think, beyond you, but let’s just say that one of the first things we discovered was that our… biologies are, hrm, not so different. We are much the same, you and I.”

She struggled for words, as if testing her mouth to this new language. “Who.. are you?”

The man above her laughed, a cold sound. His other hand came up into her view, holding a dark metal rectangle on which scrolled lines of unreadable text. With his free hand, he tapped at it absent mindedly, causing ripples in the scrolling data. “My name is not important. If you like, you may call me Citrinitas. How do you feel?”

“Feel? I feel..”

There was a pause as she searched for the right word.

“Cold. I am cold. Why am I cold?”

Her captor began a slow, methodical walk around her. “You are cold because your core body temperature was lowered unexpectedly during the gating process. This is not uncommon. This condition is known to us as planeshock. I am going to ask you a series of questions, and you will answer them for me to the best of your ability.”

His tone brooked no argument, and she bristled. Forgetting her confusion and fear, she glared at him in sudden, comfortably righteous anger. “Impudent creature! I am a High Priestess of the Goddess in Green! It is you who will answer my questions. Release me at once!”

The thin, yellow man stopped his pacing and leant over her again, bringing his unreadable face towards her own, until their skin was almost touching. He grinned, revealing a mouth full of metallic teeth, and gave a throaty, bubbling chuckle. “No. I do not believe I will.”

She spat in his face and he flinched back, standing upright again and wiping his veined skin with a cloth pulled from his long coat. Closing her eyes and lying back, she began to chant to herself, a rhythm and hypnotic phrase. Citrinitas watched her impassively, one finger scribing patterns into his dataslate. Her chanting increased in tempo and power, and as she did an ethereal green glow began to form around her hands. Shrill warning lights sprang to life across the walls and ceiling, filling the room with their alarm.

With a dull whoosh, the glow coalesced into bright, brilliant flames that wreathed her hands and forearms. Her eyes opened and she stared up at Citrinitas, face alive with power and majesty. “Now, creature, you will behold the power of the Goddess. Now, you will pay for your blasphemy!”

Citrinitas continued staring impassively at her, unmoved, oblivious to the warning shrieks of the room’s sensors. He raised another hand to his mouth. Green firelight danced in the dark metal of his goggles.

“Computer: nullgene T3X-005 in subject. Confirm.”

She looked around, unsettled despite herself. “Who is Computer? What are you–”

There was a blink of light, and her vision wavered. She looked down to see the fire of her Goddess flicker and die, evaporating into nothing. A second later, a wave of indescribable agony shot through her and she screamed. She screamed and screamed, tears streaming down her perfect skin. Every sense, every part of her very being burned in agony. The pain continued for what seemed like an eternity, and all the while Citrinitas remained unmoving, watching her intently.

Eventually, she found the strength to speak again. “Goddess…”

Citrinitas resumed his pacing. “4:37. You are impressive. It takes many of your kind hours, even days to recover from that. Some of them never recover at all.”

She tried to focus on him as he moved, but everything ached, and she could only close her eyes and continue to weep. “Wh– what. What did you do?”

“I have disabled the genetic sequence that allows you to manifest your abilities. You will never be able to call upon your… what is your word? Greenfire. Ever again.” He continued speaking, as if this were a trivial thing, a thing of no consequence to her. “The process can have radical, and often unexpected cascade effects upon your other genes. Therefore, while you are still conscious, I should like to ask you a series of questions…”

She struggled to understand. “But.. my fire was a gift from the Goddess. She… I was chosen! It is an honour!”

Citrinitas chuckled again. “A gift? Your gift is nothing more than an evolutionary hiccup. A divergent offshoot over thousands of years, activated by rigorous mental conditioning and a series of trigger phrases. Supported by cultural constructs and, if my research is correct, an extremely selective breeding program. What you have – sorry, had there – is no more a gift than your hand or foot.”

She shook her head wildly, desperately. “No, no, no… Goddess please, help me…”

The tall form of Citrinitas stopped his pacing, and stepped over to her. “It is clear to me that you do not understand. Very well.”

He placed his dataslate down, out of sight, and used his free hand to remove the glove on his other hand. Beneath it, his skin was pale yellow, almost translucent, and in some places badly scarred. He flexed it, experimentally, and held it over her captive form.

“Watch.”

With a flick of his wrist, a brilliant green flame roared into life. It bathed his hand in an ethereal glow and left shimmering trails through the air where he moved it, and as he brought it down close to her, she could feel the immense heat that it radiated. Unable to take her eyes from it, and unable to help herself, she whimpered again.

He waved his hand, and the flames vanished. Silently, he pulled his glove back on and picked up his dataslate once more.

“By the Goddess…” she managed to whisper.

Citrinitas heard her, and smiled. This time, his smile was real, and deeply terrifying.

“Your ‘Goddess’ has nothing to do with it, Priestess.”

He resumed his pacing, resumed his inscriptions, and resumed his questioning. “Is it true that a Priestess of the Goddess in Green is forbidden to mate with any other than a Priest of the Father of Iron? How long has this law been enforced?”

She closed her eyes, and began to weep.

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