The way Shemyaza, the hero of the Grigori trilogy, evolves throughout the three volumes is an actual journey from one state of being to its exact opposite. He undergoes real trauma during the dénouement in Stalking Tender Prey -- to the point that Storm Constantine changes his identity (or rather reveals his real identity) as a narrative technique. She thus reveals to the reader and to other characters that Peverel Othman was a cover-up in a way. He then puts up another identity -- but a less obscure one this time... let's say a co-existing one. Shemyaza endorses the function of both priest and Divinity for his peers. He crystallizes desires, unchains passions and performs miracles. He is a very complex character.

Ancient Derivations

The character Storm Constantine chose for the hero of her trilogy is "more than a man." Indeed, Shemyaza is an angel. Not only is he his father the God Anu's favourite offspring, but also the one to be recognised and crowned Angel-King by his peers in Scenting Hallowed Blood. To him and to none other are some of the mysteries of creation revealed. Nevertheless, the author refers to him as Grigori -- from the Greek, most of the time, like Gustav Davidson explains in his Dictionary Of Angels:

"Grigori (egregoi, egregori, 'watchers') -- in Jewish legendary lore, the grigori are a superior order of angels in both the 2nd and 5th Heavens (depending on whether they are the holy or unholy ones). They resemble men in appearence, but are taller than giants, and are eternally silent." ¹

In fact, this term is not very clearly used by the various characters and even by the author herself as she ought to call him an angel or a seraph. Storm Constantine sticks to this definition but for one detail: her characters are not silent; they live amongst humans so as not to arise the latter's awareness. Furthermore, she made them beings incarnated in the flesh and prone to passions. They are not pure spirits but creatures with a taste for all sorts of earthly delights: sex, smoking, drinking, eating etc. which is not surprising when you know that, according to Judeo-Christian traditions, angels fell because of pride or lust. Hence they cannot be assimilated to actual Gods. They could be compared with a social group with very specific origins and a strong sense of community; and it is no surprise that Storm Constantine precisely chose a name, Shemyaza, for her hero in the Jewish tradition, even though she does not claim to belong to any established religious tradition. Yet, she led thorough investigations for her character. Shemyaza is the fallen angel, the scapegoat. His name is made up of Shem -- meaning name -- and Azza meaning strength or strong. Gustav Davidson also reports that:

"... a fallen angel who is, according to rabbinic tradition, suspended between Heaven and earth (along with Azzael) as punishment for having had carnal knowledge of mortal women. Azza (Shemyaza, meaning 'the name Azza') is said to be constantly falling, with one eye shut, the other open, so that he can see his plight and suffer the more." ²

Besides, whereas Shemyaza's historicity hasn't yet been revealed in Stalking Tender Prey, the character Shemyaza is swapped with that of God. In the second half of the novel, once the elements are set up, the different characters start using Shemyaza instead of God in their speech, i.e. Shemyaza replaces God for them. Contrarily to what is to be expected, God is not invoked when characters speak, but Shemyaza is. Peverel Othman ("Great Shem"³), Aninka Prussoe ("Oh Great Shem"⁴), Lahash Murkaster ("Great Shem!"⁵) and Emma Manden ("Great Shem"⁶) are the best examples of this.

Peveral Othman: The Knife-Holder

As early as the first volume of the trilogy, Shemyaza -- Peverel Othman, rather, in order to be more precise -- is a sacrificing hero as his deeds have tragic consequences. In short, he hasn't yet turned into the character that others are going to look up to. He is the knife-holder, the one who kills so as to attract divine benevolence in his quest. It was therefore logical that Storm Constantine provided her character another identity. Indeed, how would it have been possible to turn the murderer into the character supposed to be a loving God to others? How plausible would Shemyaza have been had he been introduced as Shemyaza to the reader to start with? If he murders Serafina in Cresterfield under Aninka's horrified but helpless eyes, the young victim is only a background character in the narration. It is hard to believe that Peverel would eventually have murdered Daniel; firstly because of Daniel's importance (he is the true active hero of the trilogy) and secondly because his part and what he represents for Shemyaza are such that he could not have stayed a background character, contrarily to, say, Claudia in Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire⁷ -- she is a capital character but she dies very quickly even though her memory weighs heavily throughout the saga... only her memory.

Peverel Othman is the mysterious traveller who comes to Little Moor, the village in which most of the action takes place in Stalking Tender Prey. One source of inspiration for it is a village, whose name is Littlemore in real life, located a few miles south of Oxford⁸; it is a typically English village like the lady herself tells in the introduction of the American edition of Scenting Hallowed Blood :

"... the village of Little Moor, where most of that story takes place, was inspired by the quaint hamlets of Derbyshire..." ⁹

Peverel is a foreign element who penetrates and disturbs that normal and quiet microcosm. He seduces the characters and thus changes them, like the hero of Stephen King's Needful Things¹⁰. Peverel is searching the path leading to Divinity and it is because he is only the unconscious incarnation of Shemyaza that the author, as soon as the first pages of the prologue of Stalking Tender Prey, drops hints betraying the different -- if not sacred -- nature of this mysterious traveller :

"There was a star in the afternoon sky. The traveller raised his head, and a flash of light burned against his eyes. (...) he scanned the sky for omens, but high trees eclipsed his view, their branches flounced with autumn's yellowing leaves. (...) He sniffed the air. Something had called to him from the train. (...) Walking towards the signal, with the sun hanging high in the sky, the traveller was a solitary figure in an uncluttered scene. (...) The light, the flash in the sky he'd seen from the train, had been his guide, both physically and mentally. He knew it would continue to be. Something was waiting to be discovered."¹¹

These few indications about him, whereas we've only just met him, already supply the reader with an element of Biblical comparison. Like one of the three wise men, he is following a sign in the sky. But if the traveller/Peverel/Shemyaza is indeed going to turn into a King, crowned by his peers, he also has spiritual powers. He is the supreme priest and it is indeed a priest's task to perform a sacrifice to the Gods, as intercessor between Them and humans. But before becoming Shemyaza again, Peverel Othman only thinks of one thing :

"What was his obsession with gateways? He still could not understand it, and his waking mind shrank from examining the image. All he could do was obey the instinct when it seized him, use the old magic as a battering ram to force the gate, to blow it apart. He was aware that the gate was not a physical object, but a psychic portal within himself. What lay beyond he did not know, and sometimes he feared it might be death or madness. Still, to ignore the compulsion when it came was unthinkable, worse than ignoring the most intense sexual need."¹²

Opening the Gate

All throughout the six hundred pages of Stalking Tender Prey, he tries to set up what will allow him to reopen the Gate to Divinity, symbolized by the constellation of Orion. He takes up the role of a priest in a way. He remains patient, like a still snake watching his prey before striking it. Events in Cresterfield reported by Aninka are covering a period from July to the end of the first fortnight of October but the reader doesn't know when Peverel Othman befriended the Markses or when exactly he met Serafina. According to Aninka's report only, he has waited for three whole months before actually slaughtering her. He is much quicker with Daniel Cranton: he arrives in Little Moor on Friday 16 October and the aborted sacrifice takes place on Friday 30 October¹³. Naturally, the date of the sacrifice coincides with the day of the deads in many cultures (All Saints, Toussaint, Halloween etc.), which is of course no surprise. Gerald Messadié says that the Celts had such a cult, and this is rather appropriate as Storm Constantine is British :

"Their most important celebration, Samhain, happened on the eve of our 31 October, and celebrated the creation of the world, when chaos vanished before order. A frightful period for them, when the spirits of the dead came back to haunt the living, unless sacrifices were performed for them. Christianity simply moved it one day later to celebrate its dead on 2 December." ¹⁴

Indeed, chapter 35 starts on 30 October, which is the day of Samhain. On the day of the dead, humans are supposed to remember. But this memory could extend to Peverel's former existence, i.e. his life as Shemyaza, his spirit still bearing its stigmatas -- proof of which his violent reactions are whenever Shemyaza is evoked in front of him and especially Daniel's words, which have a very strong impact on him :

"Listening to these words, Othman wanted to lash out and strike Daniel, silence him. His words fell like prophecies, but to Othman they sounded like accusations." ¹⁵

The Church of St Shem

But what his strange is that Shemyaza and Peverel Othman are only one, a bit like Norman Bates and his would-be mother in Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. Yet, when Peverel enters the church dedicated to St Shem with Owen Winter, the young hybrid, he must unconsciously face himself and thus feels deeply ill at ease:

"He swept the beam backwards, spotlighting the stone figure of an angel, bound and hanging upside-down. It was the Fallen One. Looking up at the image of Shemyaza captured in stone made Othman feel as if he had been punched in the stomach. (...) He felt the strongest reluctance to face the image of Shemyaza again, but knew he must suffer it, for the sake of acquiring knowledge." ¹⁶

The church therefore becomes the place of a strange ascetic preparation. After having overcome his disgust of laying eyes on Shemyaza's image, Peverel prepare his victim for the sacrifice, Daniel, there... in a place dedicated to himself! He start with bathing Daniel, holding him and going down into the water with him like a priest making the offering holy before presenting it to his God. Not only does Peverel makes his victim sacred, but himself too. After the bath, like for purification and christening, he strips off and performs a ritual, naked, and sexually possesses Daniel. Daniel is a psychic and he knows that it is no use fighting what happens to him but he is aware of being able to act in a lesser way so that Peverel's actions are not successful. Furthermore, he becomes certain that two radically opposite beings are fighting within Peverel. Thanks to his visions, Daniel knows about the original trauma (i.e. the separation from Ishtahar in Kharsag, and the subsequent punishment) and he tries to make Peverel become conscious of this again, from the depths of his memory. Peverel is like a hunted animal. In the heart of a psychic crisis and who refuses to face reality. His refusal to solve things peacefully during the preparation of the sacrifice is quite explicit about this :

"There was a chance, like a doorway slightly ajar. Othman could reach out and open it, or shut it and walk away. He sensed that if he took Daniel in his arms now, and tomorrow night invoked something other than what he intended, the future would change. It would be so simple. Yet there was still a smell of charred flesh in his throat. Resentment wrestled with compassion. He struck Daniel's hands away. 'No!'

Daniel cringed back, sensing the change. Whatever Othman had briefly become, it had been banished. Slowly, he sank down to sit naked upon the stone floor. He would pray. It was all he could do. Pray to the truth of a god-form whose name bloomed in his mind like a beacon. Ahura Mazda. Pray to the light. But he knew now that the lie was coming." ¹⁷

Of course, Daniel invoking Ahura-Mazda is an echo to Peverel invoking Ahriman in chapter 12 in Stalking Tender Prey, when Peverel murders Serafina. Indeed, he utters the name of the Mazdean God of Evil: "Angra mainyu!"¹⁸ during that ceremony which seems like both an actual sacrifice and an orgy. Peverel has an intense sexual life. Be it with Daniel, Lily and Owen, he always endorses the active role during sex in general and gay sex in particular. Not once is he sexually passive when he has intercourse with a male. If his sexual activity during his sacrifices may seem surprising, the ascetic union nonetheless remains typical: the priest must also be inside his victim thanks to which he communicates directly with his God. But strangely, for the Mazdeans:

"The ritual gives access to Heaven. It is one of the peculiarities of Mazdeism to stress the eschatological function of the sacrifice, much more intensely than in the Vedic religion. (...) So as to efficiently fulfill his eschatological function, the sacrifice must be performed with 'skill.' The 'skilled' sacrifier acts 'adequately' and at the 'right moment,' i.e. at least in bright daylight, under the sun, when the light unarguably reveals the beauty of the deed. His state of mind is 'trust': he must be intimately certain that should he conduct his task correctly, Ahura-Mazda will not fail him. As acknowledgement of these qualities, the Gods agree to humans having an 'influence' upon them. They thus fully freely submit themselves to a power which acts like a strain imposed on their generosity. This hold constitutes the divine 'help' granted to humans and it is by using this that the sacrifier opens the ritual 'way' which allows the comings and goings and the exchange of gifts with the divine realm." ¹⁹

But to the Mazdean, the sacrifice is a true exchange with his God. If Peverel invokes Ahriman and Daniel Ahura-Mazda, it is, of course, no surprise. There is indeed a balance between these two Gods. Both participate from a:

"bipolar zoroastrian system, made up of one God of Good and one God of Evil, perfectly antinomic..." ²⁰

Sacrifices

Respectively, Peverel et Daniel invoke darkness and light. It is precisely what a priest generally does: enter his God's plans. But we must notice that Peverel's sacrifices are somehow flawed, if we stick to Jean Kellens's above explanations. Serafina's death occurs at night (Aninka leaves Brontë Close in the middle of the night after having slept a few hours only on the Markses' kitchen floor). Chapter 35 starts at dusk (and the colours in the sky and also the time Peverel pops in the White House confirm this). Besides, the fire -- symbolizing what is holy for the Mazdeans -- is both present at the High Place where the sacrifice is to be hold, but also at the White House where the villagers have gathered together for the barbecue. In fact, they have gathered to die. A few Little Moor residents are spared, like Verity, still imprisoned in Low Mede cellar. If the motivations are warped from the start, Peverel still feels tenderness for Daniel. Talking about sacrifice, Michel Meslin explains:

"In fact, sacrifice is no basic exchange of goods, and it is not the contact the sacred that is mortal and which, for this very reason, causes the victim's death. Any sacrifice is a symbolic act in which the victim's death signifies the chosen animal [or in this case, human being]'s passage from the world which he belongs to to that of the Gods to whom he is presented. It is through death, this symbol of passage, that communication with the divine is established and this is no blasphemy, quite the opposite in fact! A sacrifice is a consecration, a rite thanks to which man something or someone sacred, which or who is not by nature to start with. He utterly modifies the nature of his victim. Back in 1920, A. Loisy noticed that far from being in radical opposition, the world of the sacred and the world of the profane are put into perpetual contact by mankind, to the point that man sometimes resorts to sacrifices to disentangle himself from sacred influences, divine energies spread in all things and which, according to the cultures, bear different names mana, orenda, nyama. In the context of animistic religions, sacrifices are like a technique seeking to concentrate the divine energy upon a creature or an object. It is therefore an act of manipulation of the sacred by man seeking to move it. Thus, the symbolic act any sacrifice is marks a meeting between the human and the divine. It establishes a relationship actively desired by man with a Divinity." ²¹

Inversion and Perversion

Here Storm Constantine uses a classical scheme of inversion and perversion of religious rituals and symbols, to which Satanists are familiar with. Peverel uses traditional rites and distorts their normal end making Ahriman, the evil God, their addressee. If Owen is totally unconscious and has become Peverel's pawn, Daniel manages to perceive the truth. He sees the inner beauty of his torturer. He realises that what Peverel undertakes is fatally bound to fail and that he, Daniel, has the power to stand against this "travesty of love"²² Peverel forces Owen into. Yet, despite the purification he has gone through when he prepared Daniel for the sacrifice, Peverel has not achieved purification because his motivations and the means he uses are twisted. He couldn't achieve contemplation and concentration. But Mircea Eliade says :

"Asceticism radically changes the practising follower's way of being; it provides him with a super-human 'power' which can become terrible and even 'devilish.'" ²³

It's like if Mircea Eliade had written these words for Storm Constantine because it is exactly what happens throughout Stalking Tender Prey. Firstly in Cresterfield at Ivan and Wendy Marks' -- in whom Peverel has found potential helps to lead his plans -- and then in Little Moor: just like Little Moor inhabitants gathered at the White House, all the guests at the Markses' die during the tragic night -- except Aninka. Naturally, Peverel disregards the value of human life because he is an angel (or Grigori to avoid any confusion) but his quest being a metaphysical one, it confirms it. Again, Mircea Eliade explains:

"The gnostic, such as the disciple of Samkhya-Yoga, has already been punished for the 'sin' of having forgotten his real Self. The sufferings making up any human existence disappears with the awakening. The awakening, which is an anamnesis too, shows through indifference towards History, especially towards current History. The primaeval myth is important. The events having taken place in a fantasy past only deserve to be known; learning about them, man becomes aware of his true nature -- and he awakes. Historical events (e.g. the Trojan war, Alexander the Great's campaigns, Julius Caesar's murder) have no meaning since they are not loaded with any soteriological message." ²⁴

This applies to Peverel since he has no recollection of being Shemyaza. All he's looking for is the return to the source, his reunion with Ishtahar, his existence such as it was in illo tempore, to use Mircea Eliade's phrase. With this forgetfulness, this standing in the dark, Peverel/Shemyaza looks for the way back to the source and suffers greatly for it. His suffering exacerbates the violence of his desire, and therefore of his acts. Notwithstanding, René Girard states that:

"The religious man always tries to appease violence, to prevent it from being unleashed. Religious and moral behaviours always aim at non-violence in daily life in an immediate way, frequently in a mediate way in ritual life thanks to the paradoxical means of violence. Sacrifice joins all of moral and religious life but after an extraordinary détour. On the other hand, it shouldn't be forgotten that, in order to remain efficient, a sacrifice must be performed in a spirit of pietas which characterises all aspects of religious life. This is where we start seeing why it is both an act full of guilt and a very saint deed, full of illegitimate violence as well as of legitimate violence." ²⁵

Then Comes Light

Indeed, the violence which is being set free, under the command of dark forces is stopped at the very last minute thanks to the saving apparition of Ishtahar. Then comes light; Ishtahar reveals the truth and then, the carnal envelope Peverel was disappears to let the radiant Shemyaza unfold. He tries to force the passage and this is precisely what makes him fail. Peverel, even once he has turned back into being Shemyaza, is not a God -- at this stage of the trilogy. He might be a God's offspring but he is not almighty (Anu himself isn't like we will learn it in Stealing Sacred Fire). Having disobeyed Anu's commands, Shemyaza fell and this is why he so desperately tries to go back to his original place.

"Through sacrifice does man acquires 'rights' upon fate and thus possesses 'a strength which forces fate and then changes the order of the universe according to human whims'." ²⁶

It is a rebirth, but strangely enough, whereas Peverel Othman is an active character, Shemyaza is somehow lazy and even passive. Indeed, during the flight towards London and once in Moses Assembly Rooms, he remains prostrated, as if he was in a state between Peverel's death and Shemyaza's (re-)birth... a sort of maturing before the real rebirth? As if had occurred at an initial state only. The chrysalis before the butterfly, in a way.

In fact, one realises that if Peverel Othman fails, it is because he hasn't understood that what he must sacrifice is himself and not an alien victim. It is himself he must give up. It is what he'll understand throughout the next two sequels.

Footnotes

1. G. Davidson, A Dictionary Of Angels, The Free Press, New York, 1967, pp. 126-127, "Grigori."
2. Ibid., p. 65, article "Azza."
3. S. Constantine, Stalking Tender Prey, op.cit., chap.. 30, p.533
4. Ibid., chap. 12, p. 219
5. Ibid., chap. 35, p. 628
6. Ibid., Epilogue, p. 648
7. A. Rice, Interview With The Vampire, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1976 ; voir aussi les volumes constituant la suite de cette saga.
8. This information was given to me during my first meeting with Steve Jeffery (from the former Inception in Kidlington) a friend of the lady herself, on 10 Janaury 2001 in Oxford.
9. S. Constantine, introduction to the American edition of Scenting Hallowed Blood, 1999
10. S. King, Needful Things, Viking, 1991
11. S. Constantine, Stalking Tender Prey, op. cit., prologue, pp. xx - xxiv
12. Ibid., p. xxiii
13. The author does not give a date yearwise in the first two volumes of the trilogy. Our only certainty is that Stealing Sacred Fire starts the day of the eclipse, i.e. on 11 August 1999 and we know that Shemyaza has been sleeping for five years. Which would mean that Scenting Hallowed Blood happens in 1994. But the only possibility to make fictional dates coincide with real dates would mean that Stalking Tender Prey happens in 1992. The escape from Little Moor towards London could have taken over a year as they flee from Little Moor on Tuesday 3 November and that the action in Scenting Hallowed Blood happens that very month of November until the end of December of the same year. Unlikely. Yet, we must keep in mind that this is not only fiction but fantasy.
14. G. MessadieÉ, Histoire générale du Diable, Robert-Laffont, Paris, 1993, Ière partie, chap. 7, p. 160
15. S. Constantine, Stalking Tender Prey, op. cit., chap. 13, pp. 252-3
16. Ibid., p. 209
17. Ibid., chap. 32, pp. 567-8
18. Ibid., chap. 12, p. 228
19. J. Kellens, in F. Lenoir et Y. Tardan-Masquelier, Encyclopédie des religions, Bayard, Paris, 2000, vol. 1 - Histoire, chap. 2, "Les religions antiques du Proche et du Moyen-Orient," pp. 110-111
20. G. MessadieÉ, Histoire générale du Diable, op. cit., IIème partie, chap. 2, p. 348
21. M. Meselin, in F. Lenoir et Y. Tardan-Masquelier, Encyclopédie des religions, op. cit., vol. 2 - Thèmes, chap. 7, "Le sacrifice," pp. 1990-1
22. S. Constantine, Stalking Tender Prey, op. cit., chap. 35, p. 617
23. M. Eliade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses - De l'âge de la pierre aux mystères d'Éleusis, Bibliothèque historique Payot, Paris, 1976, vol. I, chap. IX, § 78, p. 246
24. M. Eliade, Aspects du mythe, Gallimard, Paris, 1963, chap. VII, § " Gnosticisme et philosophie indienne ", p. 168
25. R. Girard, La violence et le sacré, Grasset, Paris, 1972, chap. I, p. 36
26. G. Durard, Les structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, Dunod (11ème édition), Paris, 1992, livre deuxième, deuxième partie, chap. I, "Les symboles cycliques," pp. 357-8