Cut Scene from Truthwitch Iseult learns from the Puppeteer
Note from Sooz:
It was important that Iseult’s exploration of her Threadwitchery (or is it Weaverwitchery? Dun-dun-dun!) feels natural, both to her and to the readers.
As shown in this scene that was cut from Truthwitch, I originally envisioned Iseult learning to control the Cleaved much earlier in the series. As revisions progressed, I realized it was too much “leveling up” too soon. If she has All the Powers and has already learned to master them, where will she go in future books?
So I removed this scene, and now she learns to cut Threads in Windwitch.
Enjoy!
“But look,” the girl went on, straightening out of the window and motioning to the nearest row of Cleaved. “Do you see that man with the long cloak? He used to be a cleric of Noden.”
Iseult did see the man. His once-yellow robe was now stained black with blood, and his scalp—which should have been shaved—was covered in uneven clumps of gray hair.
“He’s a very powerful Earthwitch,” the Puppeteer explained, her voice surprisingly cool. For once, she sounded like a true Threadwitch—as if discussing “business” brought out this side of her. “In the cleric’s village, he had a Threadbrother. An elementally powerless man. When I cleaved the cleric, the Threadbrother tried to intervene. I don’t know what he thought he could do—when a man is cleaving, there is little to heal him save the Moon Mother… and me, of course.” The Puppeteer spoke matter-of-factly—no sign of vanity as she declared her power equal to the Nomatsi Goddess.
“For some reason, though,” the Puppeteer continued, an exhaustion creeping into her tone, “I didn’t let the cleric feast on his Threadbrother. I guess I still felt generous in those days, and I called the cleric away before he could kill anyone. But look—do you see the coral Threads in there? They pulse ever so faintly beneath the Severed Threads.”
Iseult stared hard at the Threads spinning over the cleric’s body until…
“Yes,” she murmured. “I see the Thread of friendship.”
“And now you will see how easy it is to break them.” The Puppeteer’s hands lifted—pale as Iseult’s but with finer wrist bones, smaller forearms. Her fingers, though, were disconcertingly similar to Iseult’s: long, thin to the point of knobby, and widely spaced when flexed.
The Puppeteer reached out, fingers curling and stretching, like a musician at the harp.
Or a weaver at the loom.
The cleric’s Threads—the coral strands that still bound him to his distant Threadbrother—floated ever so slowly toward the Puppeteer’s hands, stretching thinner and thinner as they moved… then sliding into the gaps between her fingers. Spinning around, lacing, and always, always stretching.
Once the Threads had strained so thin as to be almost invisible—and had gathered so thickly around the Puppeteer’s fingers that they looked like a glowing ball of pink yarn—the Puppeteer drew her hands to her face. “These are all the Threads that connect the cleric to his childhood friend. You gather them up as if you are trying to make a Threadstone, but rather than bind… Well, Iseult, all it takes now is a little snip.” Her face dipped forward, and Iseult had the sensation of the Puppeteer’s mouth opening—of her teeth showing and the Threads slipping between…
The Puppeteer snapped her teeth shut. The Threads cracked like a wrong footstep on a frozen lake. In a flash of light, the strands shriveled inward… shrank backward… vanished entirely.
The cleric started convulsing. He fell to his knees as fresh pustules rippled and popped across his body. Then the Puppeteer turned away from the window, and Iseult lost sight of him.
“He won’t die now,” the girl said tiredly, dusting off her hands as if bits of Thread still clung. “But he will be a weaker soldier without those Threads that bind.”
“Why is that?” Iseult pressed, still fighting to disguise revulsion. This was not Threadwitchery, and Iseult was not capable of this.
Gretchya had been right when she’d said this woman’s magic came from the Void. Iseult had no doubt of that now.
“I would think,” Iseult continued in her most attentive tone, “that having the man alone would make him easier to control.”
Iseult felt the Puppeteer smile as she headed to the staircase—no longer skipping but shuffling. “It does make him easier to manipulate, but it also makes him more likely to die. Once the Cleaved lose all of their bonds, they stop wanting to live and the cleaving progresses more rapidly. Likely that cleric will be dead by next week.”
Hot sickness rose in Iseult’s chest, vile and almost impossible to hide. So she blurted out the best lie she could conjure. “You’re tired. I am… so sorry. Is weaving exhausting?”
Again, the Puppeteer seemed to smile. “You know,” she said softly, her feet thumping loudly up the steps to the third story, “you are the first person to ever ask me that.”
