# Response fiction for Shemeska: The Collector



## TanithT (Feb 8, 2010)

*The Collector*

I know you can no longer read, but I thought I should write you a love letter.  You are so very beautiful, my dearest one, even with all that you are missing.  

Do you remember when we met?  You had everyone enchanted as they listened to your stories. Watching silently from cold and distant shadows, I was no exception.  Such wondrous tales you were telling them, tales of other worlds and otherworldly creatures. The tapestries you wove with your words were rich and rare and strange.  They compelled me to reach out to you.  Actually it was you who were reaching out to me, all unknowing.  And now I am here, my love, to make all of your dreams come true.  

You told them of the blind clockmaker and his brother, a sculptor of flesh who shaped masterpieces of tortured beauty from human hearts.  Your fertile pen gave life to a crippled shepherd girl who casts a Baernaloth's shadow on the barren hillsides where her demonic charges roam. You gave them flesh and conscience broken on the Architect's wheel, beautiful fiends and animal-headed sorceresses, their pain and passion poured out like crimson wine on the pages of your creation.  You captured them flawlessly and enmeshed their destinies to your whim like bright birds tangled in thickets of razorvine.  And oh, how they struggled and bled, these puppets of your magnificent mind.  The scent of it drew me inexorably to you, even from such a distance. 

Imaginative, they called you. Creative.  A better word might have been _perceptive_.  How is it, my love, that you can see so clearly into the vast chasm that once separated us?  I had to know, so I came for you. And I promise, we will never be separated again.

You were so surprised when I drifted into your dwelling, all cold and shadow, to embrace you for the first time. I did my best to silence you with my kisses.  But giving and generous creature that you are, you never stopped screaming into my lipless mouth.  As long you still had your tongue, you made that sweet music for me.  How could this not be love?  By the time I was done with you, you were going nowhere.  

Don't worry, my darling.  You will not die.  Let your mind be completely at ease.  This is only my way of getting to know you more deeply and intimately than you have ever been known before.  You no longer need those unimportant bits of flesh, not now that you are my consort.  Hush now, dear.  There is no need to beg for your life.  Changed and eternally preserved by the enduring chill of my touch, you will live forever.

I do adore you so, my darling.  Did you know that each and every molecule I take from you affords me an eternity of exquisite contemplation?  The deep rich flavor of your mind and the complex spirals of your mortal DNA linger piquantly on my tongue. You are surely the most delicious human I have ever tasted. 

That last bite of your spleen was particularly wonderful, love.  The memories it held from your childhood were so dark and heavy that they must have been quite a burden for you to bear.  No, don't try to thank me for taking them from you.  Your tongue is already gone, and you’ll need all of the breath in your remaining lung for screaming.  You see, I've saved the very best part for last.

For now the time has come to consummate our love.  The intensity of your feelings cannot be denied, and true love demands that we both be completely naked and known to one another.  Let me share myself with you, beloved.  I am Inuq'Sharaq, sometimes called Our Lady of Pain by the mad monks of Secarii who worship me in their blasphemous rites of self-mutilation.  Men who have encountered me only in my shadow-form have dubbed me The Cold One, but they do not know the truth at the heart of me, which is that I am a goddess of love.   In a city that was seared from the face of the earth aeons ago, they knew me as Sharra, and that is what I would have you call me.  You can no longer speak, but your blood drips cold and slow in rhythm to my name.  Thank you, my love.  I accept your tribute.

Now that I am fully known to you, you must be naked for me, lover.  _Take off your skin._  Come, I shall help you undress.  Ahh, you are so beautiful in your vulnerability, and your heart is open to me.  I can see it throb and pulse beneath what remains of your chest. We have never been closer or more intimate than in this moment.  Instead of bending down to taste you, I am content just to gaze at you adoringly.  I could look at you like this for an eternity; my kind are as slow and patient as glaciers when it comes to love.

But so great was your love for me, my darling, that you could not wait.  The pale moonlight glistened on the wetly red muscle and blue-white tendon of your trembling flayed hand as you reached deep inside yourself and used the last of your strength to offer me your heart.  It pulsed weakly for the last time as you held it out to me.  I thanked you humbly for your gift and ate it with reverence, even as I wept blood tears.  You have touched me deeply, and I will keep my promises.

Did you think that would be the end, my love?  Did I not promise you an eternity?  I may be a cousin to the Lie Weaver, but to you I have only ever told the truth.  It is true that you are not the first, and that you will not be the last.  It is also true that you will live forever.  Without a heart, you can no longer move or draw enough breath to scream.   And after I take your eyes as a last fond memento, you will no longer be able to see.  But you can still feel, exquisitely and completely.  I want you to feel for me.  Forever.  
_
Requiescat in pace_, beloved.  I love you.


*******​
Among scholars of the arcane, the greater fiend Inuq'Sharaq is also known as The Collector.  She may appear in any of a number of guises, ranging from that of a beautiful young human woman to that of a cold and icy black mist. 

From the few accounts of her that can be found, or sorcerously pried from the flayed lips of the victims she leaves behind, it is surmised that her fascination with mortals is quite genuine.  In her own terrible way, she does seem to truly love them.  If the historical accounts of Archimage Tylaren ap Brant of the Order of the Black Rose are of any worth, her victims may well come to love her in return. At the end when unbearable and limitless agony turns into religious ecstasy, or simply drives them mad, they have been known to do their best to cry out her name, or to write it in their own perpetually oozing blood.  If the definition of love is that which never dies, then the victims she leaves behind have assuredly entered that most rarefied realm.

The cold revenants created by Inuq’Sharaq’s touch are both undying and unhealing.  They do not regenerate.  They can be destroyed completely by fire, but it is a question that begs debate as to whether their very ashes may be sentient and feeling.  Still, it has been the most common method used through the ages by our Order to dispose of them – we hope, mercifully - in the rare cases that she has left one of her former lovers in a place accessible to any but other demonkind.  

What this fiend gains from collecting mortal revenants in this fashion is not known.  She does not take blood or souls, though she does consume flesh as a means of exploring the mind and memory of her victims.  She may be in some manner akin to Sarkithel the Chronicler, in that she appears to want nothing more from mortals than to closely observe and record them in their direst agonies. Though to her, these are indistinguishable from the throes of passion, and she does everything she can to stimulate the mortal passions that she craves to experience through the savoring of their flesh.

From the rare necromantic artifacts left by the Collector that our Order has catalogued, such as the letter we have reproduced here, it may be surmised that she believes herself to be a goddess of love and ecstatic desire. There have certainly been sects throughout history who have acknowledged her as such.  The blasphemous mad monks of the Isle of Secarii, famous for their manufacture of the rare and expensive potable known as Secariian bloodbrandy, worship Inuq’Sharaq unquestioningly and do all that they can to attract her attention.  Few of the Secarii have been so favored by her directly, but they inflict similar ordeals on themselves and on one another in hideous rites that are said to have driven the uninitiated mad simply by observing them.  Travel to the Isle is not recommended to the faint of heart.

The original letter, now preserved in our archives, seems to have been written in Baernaloth blood on a parchment of living human skin.  It still writhes horribly when the slightest breath of air brushes against its raw and bleeding surface, necessitating a holding glass for readability.  Some of our Order have raised their voices to urge the scroll’s merciful destruction, but calmer heads have so far prevailed, and its contents will be preserved for the benefit of our next generation of necromantic scholars.

It is worthy of note that the mortals who most often gain her attention are storytellers, bards and artists of at least minor renown.  It has been suggested that those with sufficient Talent to perceive even dimly into the shadowy and unspeakable realms of the Baern, so that the fiend essentially becomes their artistic muse, are the ones most likely to find themselves within her cold and shadowy embrace.  In some cases, this seems to have been true whether or not the storytellers in question were fully aware of the reality of what they believed to be merely their own imaginative creations….

- First Chronicler Tisian ap Leyn, Order of the Black Rose


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## sciborg3 (Nov 1, 2011)

*Great Story*

Hey, we're making a fanzine on Planewalker (Quarterly Fanzine | Planewalker) and also at some point soon getting a PDF up of Shemmy's Baernoloths.

This would be great piece in the zine to introduce the PDF - do you mind if we used it?

thanks for considering,

Sci


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## TanithT (Nov 10, 2011)

sciborg3 said:


> Hey, we're making a fanzine on Planewalker (Quarterly Fanzine | Planewalker) and also at some point soon getting a PDF up of Shemmy's Baernoloths.
> 
> This would be great piece in the zine to introduce the PDF - do you mind if we used it?
> 
> ...




Not a problem.  This piece has no commercial value and isn't salable due to references to copyrighted characters (and a live person, lol).  I wrote it as a cute little Valentine's Day present for Shemmy.   Yes, we have weird ideas of what is cute.  So if he's good with it, I have no problem with it appearing in a fanzine.

I do occasionally post salable or already sold/copyrighted stuff, so thanks for asking.


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## sciborg3 (Nov 13, 2011)

Thanks! Will let you know when it gets published in the fanzine!


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## Shemeska (Jan 7, 2012)

I'm still seriously creeped out by this one.

But it's still vaguely, wierdly romantic.

We're wierd.


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## Cheiromancer (Jan 7, 2012)

Makes me want to go and read me some Clive Barker. What was the story that _Hellraiser_ was based on? Ah yes, _The Hellbound Heart_.


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## TanithT (Jan 8, 2012)

Shemeska said:


> I'm still seriously creeped out by this one.
> 
> But it's still vaguely, wierdly romantic.




Aww, that's sweet.  Remind me to pick up some dry ice for the special effects, chill my lips down with ice water and creep into your bedroom draped in a tattered bedsheet to wake you up with a nice romantic kiss.


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