Ombria in Shadow: an Explanation

Art by Grzegorz Domaradzki

Calling this post an explanation seems mightily bold though. It's in fact a very assumption-based analysis but as I'd like people to see it I'm keeping the title but I'm going to be slightly more humble and refer to it from hereon out as my interpretation. And to completely undercut that, I'll just share, with great pretentiousness, a quote by Lord Dunsany.

"And there is a path that winds over the hills to go into mysterious holy lands where dance by night the spirits of the woods, or sing unseen in the sunlight; and no one goes into those holy lands, for who that love Oojni would rob her of her mysteries, and the curious aliens come not."

---Part the third: A Dreamer's tales, The Idle City---

In my review of Ombria in Shadow I mentioned that interpreting and understanding how the narrative fits together isn't integral to the enjoyment of it. I'm reliably informed that having no clue as to the meaning of events in a Patricia Mckillip novel is part of the experience. But, of course, I couldn't let it go and despite my review, because I'm a contrary sort of person, I'm still going to talk about what I eventually made from it.

Specifically, this blogpost is about the nature of Faey; the sorceress who lives below the city, the nature of Ombria itself, the climax of the novel and the concept behind (hopefully) the reflected world.

I will not be talking about how satisfying the novel is. how good the relationships are and how unconventional it is to have the love between family members put center stage. For that I'll refer you to my review. Ombria in Shadow Review Maybe go read the review first and decide to read the novel, then of you can't figure it out I might be able to help out a bit.

What follows here is my attempt to rationalise many of the more mysterious elements of the story by giving them a place in a complete and all-encompassing narrative within the confines of Ombria in Shadow the novel. As such I'll be using any and all elements in the novel that fit my interpretation. Translation: Spoilers abound.

If you plan on reading Ombria in Shadow and don't want to be spoiled, I suggest you stop reading here. If you haven't read it, you're going to have difficulties following along anyway.


SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP

Original cover art for Ombria in Shadow,
by Kinuko Yamabe Craft

Before we begin, a little disclaimer.
If you've read more than a few reviews on any given Mckillip novel the key words you'll be most likely to remember are; 'Lyrical', 'poetry', 'dreamlike' and 'dreamy'.

Some of those reviews stuck with me while I was trying to make sense of the ending to the book and they did influence my thought process getting to my interpretation. And though I didn't see this specific theory proposed anywhere else, I ended up looking for interviews with Mckillip to build my case that in this book at least, Mckillip's story might take more from dreams than just their ephemeral quality; however, I just couldn't find any substantiating material anywhere.
I did find a great discussion on the Strange horizons website but it didn't actually point to anything of what I wanted to know.

Anyway, of the things I read, the specific thing that stuck with me was that someone said that 'Mckillip is an author who takes her inspiration from dreams' and afterwards I couldn't find that review or analysis anymore. Or even anything to even begin backing up that statement. So basically that's half the substantiating for this theory right out the window.

But I'm rolling with it anyway because, in the end there has to be an explanation for at least one specific line in the book, spoken by Faey, and a reason for why the ending happens the way it does.

So now I'll go ahead and bore you to tears with my ludicrously lengthy analysis.

-----

Introduction

There's a question that lingers after the novel has ended.

Who or what is Faey?

"...Something snapped out of the sorceress, as if she had spat lightning.
Ducon gave a sudden cry of pain.
Lydea pushed her hands tightly against her mouth.
'Do not meddle, Faey said softly without turning,..."

So,
the story gets resolved by Faey, who was, before the climax, a pretty restrained character (as in didn't seriously meddle in the plot. There is literally nothing else about this character that is otherwise restrained. What I mean here specifically when I state restrained, is that the level of power on display in the finale compares to nothing seen or even suggested before over the entire course of the novel).
She comes up from her home in the 'underworld', and, as she appears in the city, her power, her magic starts to bend reality back into a shape more pleasing to certain undescribed laws.

This happens more or less without any of the other characters and even though Ducon will eventually have killed Domina Pearl, how the novel ends will make you question if his destroying of the 'Cocoon' even matters. Because, when all is said and done. the epilogue shows more than a slight alteration to the events of the novel.

In fact, all the characters, barring Faey and Mag, who was sheltered by Faey during the Transformation, have no memories of the past 240 pages. It's almost as if the story hasn't happened.
They are brought back, seemingly, to the time of the first chapter, with all of them in the castle, freshly in mourning after the death of king Royce, with slightly altered relationships to (literally) accomodate a happy ending and everywhere everything is mostly the same except of course with one significant alteration; there is no Domina Pearl.

The story has effectively been excised of its negative plot elements, and though the characters are still imbued with melancholy and have a sense that the time of their mourning has lasted for such a long time that it feels like it's been going on for ever (or for an entire novel's length), they have no memories of the original story after the death of their king.

So, who is this character that she can alter reality and the story in this way?

-----

Faey

There's an obscure possibility, subliminally suggested in numerous places throughout the novel.

(p17 Fantasy masterwork edition)
 "She paid no attention to the women who flung her startled glances, or to the boys who minced, giggling, in her shadow. They were no more than smoke, the leftover dreams of the sunken, deserted city."

(p93)
"The palace itself had its secrets, its hidden doors and rooms. What, she wondered, did it hold at the heart of itself? Its past, most likely: ghosts, memories and dreams, guarded against time within passages as unnoticed as the silent, busy veins in the wrist."

(p245)

"He walked until he saw how far he would have to go to reach the beginning of time in the undercity. The fragmented, ephemeral memories of shadowy walls, towers, the river fanning into a vast black sea, seemed too far to reach except in dreams."

137)

"My beauty,' she murmured and kissed its nubbled back lightly before she set it into the box.

'Thank you. I must take him back and feed him,' she said to Lydea, who wondered for the first time since she had opened the sorceress's door, if she were lost in someone else's dream."

Ombria in Shadow, the city, is a dream. Or it is a dream realm that operates on dream-logic. 

Faey is the Dreamer. Or at least; she is the agent through which the Dreamer's subconsciousness works.

'"I thought', she said uneasily to Faey, 

'that it was you making all the noise out there. What is it?'

'It happens,' Faey answered obscurely. 'This is a good place to wait it out, It's outside of time, and you'll remember better afterward.'

'Wait what out? Remember what? What exactly is going on out there?'

The sorceress shrugged slightly; an eyebrow tilted.

'I'm never sure. But it seems to happen whenever I come up from the underworld.'

Mag stared at her, speechless."

I mentioned that she is the agent of the dreamer's subconsciousness at the very least, if she isn't actually the dreamer herself, because in the above quote it seems she isn't aware of being able to exert as much influence over the reality of Ombria as she is obviously capable of. But she passively, cautiously acknowledges that there must be a connection somehow to her presence in the city and its ensuing violent and cataclysmic change.

So then, take a look at where she resides; the undercity.

Its layers and remnants, consisting of the ruins of an accumulation of forgotten cities, built over crumbled streets and neglected waterways. filled with ghosts and memories. These are the remnants of previous dreams, a shadowy soup of neglected dream creation wherein dwells the one with power over the dream realm of Ombria.

Ombria's history is one long unbroken dream with the dreamer; Faey, working obliviously in the depths of the city, its basement where all its unnecessary and obsolete permutations go, in a time past or outside of it, in a secluded viewpoint, only occasionally intervening to stop the dream from derailing, from becoming too horrible, in order to keep the dreaming active.

If our dreams become too horrible, our subconsciousness intervenes and as we begin to realize we dream, we wake up. This seems to imply that Faey herself is not the subconsciousness, but the dreamer.

"Just beyond light, and just within his eyesight, Ducon glimpsed the glowing, restless currents of her powers that never aged, never slept."

Right before the dramatic height of the book we get this interesting quote.

(p245)

"The river narrowed, quickened, its surface trembling like the eyes of dreamers."

A variation of this quote returns again pretty soon after, in a more urgent manner, in the climax itself as Ombria's reality is already distorting.

(p273)

"Emerging from within that brief pocket of time, he was startled to feel the floor shake under him. Something other than the sorceress was happening in the ancient palace.

It stirred like a living thing, murmured and groaned like a dreamer."

Like a dreamer, troubled enough to slumber uneasily. Close to waking up.

Mckillip here is again relying on subliminal imagery to hint at the truth of the narrative.

I mentioned Faey as a rather passive character before the climax. Almost never coming out of her house in the undercity. Only through her potions acting to progress lives or to end them. impartially, rarely ever taking a side, snuffing out lives good and bad without compunction.

She's lived long and seen it all, she takes it all in stride because until now she has lived as a being entirely unto itself. An unwitting solipsist dreamer.

She says in a conversation with Lydea about Domina Pearl:

 (p161 FM ed.).

"'She needed; I made. It was Business. I never thought anything of it, except that I disliked her.

But I never questioned anything she wanted. She seemed inconsequential, until now.

I've lived a very long time, I've seen minor powers come and go. I kept expecting her to go.'"

It's only when Mckillip's characters adress Faey, beseeching her to save one of the few primary and active characters that she decides to step in. To save Ducon. When asked if she has an antidote she responds that she herself is the antidote. We never see the healing process (just as a suggestive aside).

But even then, because she's not really attached to him, she does not step out of her comfort zone, to go 'up-top' to halt the out of control spiralling situation that is the Black Pearl. She deals with a few cherry-picked consequences but doesn't take care of the root.

When she finally does decide to intervene in the rapidly darkening plot; when it's already spiralling out of control. She only has to enter the city, to go up-top for it to recognize her and change itself immediately and cataclysmically accordingly to her subconscious wants.

Her mere Arrival in Ombria is enough.

Her arrival alters every fundament of the city, its whole underpinnings of light and shadow, reduced to an overpowering dark by the madness of Domina Pearl is tilted back into balance (light?). It is almost a literal deus ex machina. The dreamer alters the dream. She is god and the master of the city that is this world. The hidden subconsciousness of the dreamer steps forth out of the shadows to stop the dream from spilling out into horror.

And when she is huddled, together with her wax girl, in a small room at the calm heart of the hurricane that is the rewriting of the history of Ombria, she and Mag are unaffected.

There Faey reveals to Mag what she knows about what is happening.

(p272 FM ed.)

'I'm never sure. But it seems to happen whenever I come up from the underworld.'

Now, I'm aware that the 'it was all a dream' explanation is one of the most irksome and trite concepts ever conceived, because it actively saps everything that's come before of meaningful impact. But in this story the dream IS the reality, there is no waking up.

Similarly the story (I feel) shouldn't simply be a tale of two realms working on magic principles designed specifically for that realm by the writer; a good novel but one without explanation and just a simple succession of randomly occurring events. It would again turn the story from something meaningful into mindless but, admittedly, well thought-out escapism.

Luckily, there is more.

The characters

So it was a dream. Where does this leave the characters. In dreams the only real entity tends to be the dreamer. With every other character 'living' in support of the dream entity; enabling a kind of literal solipsistic existence. If they aren't real, then the story doesn't matter. So in order for some emotional connection for the reader to be present they must become real.

There seems to be a possibilty, or an intimation of a possibility, for this as well. How can these characters be real if only the dreamer should actually matter?

(p163 FM ed.)

"The silvery eyes saw her clearly then: someone real, standing in time, not in a dream, with a face he recognized and thoughts he could guess at if he had to.

How strange, she reflected. How strange to be in a dream one moment and in the world the next, and to know the difference in the blink of an eye.

'You have a very peculiar expression on your face,' he commented drowsily.

'I was just thinking.'

'About what?'

'About how we know what's real. How we wake out of a timeless place and recognize time.

How you know me here, now, even when nothing or anyone else in this place is familiar.

I might have been wandering through your dream, but you knew immediately which of me will bring you paper.'

He was silent for so long, still clasping her wrist, that she thought he must have fallen asleep without knowing it.

He said finally, 'Say that again.'

'I can't,' she answered helplessly. 'It was just a thought. I gave it to you.'

'Something about dreams coming to life-'

'That's not what I said.'

'That's what I heard.'"

Yes, I know. Stay with it though and you'll see that it only looks as if I'm taking that last quote out of context and using it for my own ends.

In context, this segment doesn't explicitly support my theory, but rather leads to something else.

However, Mckillip, after this last sentence, abruptly, seemingly dismisses the subject.

For a page and a half we are left to fend for ourselves, to ascribe our own meaning to it.

She doesn't immediately give a follow-up and forces us to question the importance of what has just transpired, on its own merit; the ideas within the confines of the conversation. And slowly, in this silent dialogue between writer and reader an idea begins to form.

In this dream, this out-of-control mutation where layers of dreams have been built on yet more layers, an endless succession of them; the supporting characters have stopped living their lives in support of the solipsist self of the dreamer and have in fact become unique and active selves, living their own lives and choosing their own paths. Dreams coming to life.

But if these characters are real. How can they be altered so willy-nilly?
We see that after the Transformation all the characters have  lost their memory and Camas Erl and Domina Pearl have disappeared.

So then, let's take a look at the two bad guys, whose disappearance is the most noticeable.

-----

The disappearance and nature of Camas Erl and Domina Pearl

Camas Erl, in his studies, had noticed that, reading between the lines of history, in books and ancient scrolls that there were fundamental but wholly imperceptible changes to the city of Ombria at certain times.

Changes that have happened again and again in the History of Ombria's existence whenever the balance between good and bad, light and dark, is threatened to be tilted too far to one side. Whatever this 'too far tilting' would mean isn't clear because an event always seems to happen, right before the balance shifts too far. and resets it. However, there is no actual, substantial evidence of this event, natural or otherwise, ever actually having happened before.

"Perilous times, a desperate city, the ruling house in chaos, in danger —all of this signals the change, and causes it. The deeper Domina Pearl plunges the city into misery and hopelessness, the stronger its visions of hope and longing for change become. Do you understand? When the desire becomes overwhelming, the transformation becomes inevitable. It has happened before, it will happen again, and we are reaching that point — ” 

Camas Erl teams up with Domina Pearl to bring about such a change. To bring the city into such an accute state of darkness and despair that the change will start to manifest itself.
Camas's motives for this are known: He wishes to align himself to the strongest and most powerful creature he can find, Domina Pearl, so he can witness the Transformation without being touched by its effects. Because as a historian he is consumed by the contradictions in Ombria's past.

“What do you expect to gain from what you call the transformation?” Camas interrupted his own sentence with a word. “Enlightenment. And the power that comes with an unbroken memory of the history of the city. Domina Pearl’s knowledge of sorcery may not survive the transformation if she herself is not aware of the shift. I want to stay alive, be aware of the shift from city to shadow, and I will ally myself and my abilities to anyone powerful enough to maintain the integrity of existence, knowledge, memory and experience through the transformation.” 

The motive of the Pearl?

"What, for instance, precipitates the shift from city to shadow city? Is it sorcery? Has it to do with the precarious state of affairs in the House of Greve? The powerless heir, the bastard who cannot act? What secrets are hidden within the secret palace? What is there to gain by anticipating and surviving the shift? Domina Pearl believes that it is possible, if one can remain aware during the transformation, to amass enormous knowledge and power. To rule the shadow city when it emerges, since no one else will remember the previous city, and who ruled then. All will be accepted as it is revealed. "

The second quote above points to the suggestion that Domina Pearl's desire for the change is rooted in the lust for power.
But I have my own theory on that in a bit.

Now ,
Because both Camas Erl and Domina Pearl's (also, notice the similarity in names) goals, as individual characters, are to bring about this Change in the fundamental fabric of Ombria. They are with their whole being, by the time of the events of the novel, geared towards achieving this end. Because of this they have become irredeemable threats to the continuation of the Dream. They get done away with. Neatly excised like malignant tumors. Domina Pearl's past existence is hinted at in one of 2 new stories told by Lydea to Kyel. In it she is relegated to the role of bogeyman.

“I am the sorceress who lives underground,” the prince said. “Is there really a sorceress who lives underground?” “So they — ” Lydea checked herself, let the fox speak. “So they say, my lord.” “How does she live? Does she have a house?” She paused again, glimpsing a barely remembered tale. “I think she does. Maybe even her own city beneath Ombria. Some say that she has an ancient enemy, who appears during harsh and perilous times in Ombria’s history. Then and only then does the sorceress make her way out of her underground world to fight the evil and restore hope to Ombria.” 

Of Camas Erl is said that he has taken a long and indefinite trip to the islands and is not expected to return.

"She was young to be tutoring a prince, but the regent had chosen her. She replaced Camas Erl, who had taken a long journey to study flora and fauna in the outermost islands of the southern seas. He had left shortly after Royce’s death, and would be gone, he had said, indefinitely."

The change in these two's fates is remarkable. Leading me to believe that though Camas is an individual character who still has his place in the world, albeit as an exile. (though maybe the explanation given is a front for simple deletion),
Domina Peal Has been relegated to the status of myth, of a fairy tale villain with the tentative warning and promise of her reoccurence somewhere down the line in Ombria's future, maybe reincarnated in a new character, because in the events of the story she didn't seem aware of any past confrontations with the Sorceress who lives below the city.

From this point on it is important to keep in mind that I'm trying to impose logic on something that is composed out of dreams. In dreams, Logic is in fact happily chasing butterflies through a field of tall grass filled with flowers. Reason doesn't come into this. Dreams are about ideas and associations and how they interact to form a narrative that rationally in the real world shouldn't work.

Domina Pearl is in fact an an idea the dreamer can not get rid of. A recurring nightmare identity stalking her slowly throughout each succession of the dream, building itself up from nothing again every time it is deleted.
A recurring incarnation of a power-hungry entity who subconsciously is trying to make the dream end, to wake up the dreamer, to end the endless status quo.
In the epilogue however; a clear distinction is made, between the ancient enemy and Domina Pearl.

Some say that she has an ancient enemy, who appears during harsh and perilous times in Ombria’s history.

Domina Pearl the idea has been turned into the fairy tale.

"Kyel picked another puppet up, looked at it silently a moment. The queen of pirates, whose black nails curved like scimitars, whose hair was a rigid knoll in which she kept her weapons, stared back at him out of glittering onyx eyes. Kyel put her down as silently, frowning slightly." 

Domina pearl the entity has been turned too. Nothing of her remains but a doll. A doll that apparently summons up negative but easily dismissable feelings.

In the Epilogue 'Ever after' Lydea Tells Kyel a Fairy tale concerning the Sorceress who lives below the city who occasionally rises up from her place in the underworld to do battle with an ancient enemy. The 'ancient enemy' implies that that entity, in the timeframe within the book; Domina Pearl, is connected on a deeper level to Faey.
There are arguments for this as well in three quotes that shed tentative light on the nature of the Pearl.

 “I cannot imagine why you would insinuate that we are in any way alike.” “I do not believe,” Lydea said in her best courtly manner, “that I have insinuated any such thing. I said it. You’re a pair, you both are; I can’t tell the difference between you."

"What is the Black Pearl?” He was silent, thinking, a furrow trowelled across his forehead. “The Black Pearl,” he said finally, “is a piece of the underside of history. The dark side of the moon. The shadow it casts across the earth when it eclipses the sun. She is, shall we put it, something that should have vanished long ago, but didn’t."

And who do we know who rules the hidden history of Ombria? who has power over it, even without her own knowledge?

"What seemed to be the Black Pearl’s bed distracted her for a few moments. It stood open against the far wall, a chest as long as a coffin with a high, rounded lid. The outside looked as if it had been made of amber and the gleaming wings of thousands of beetles. Inside the box and along the lid, some strange substance had formed a mold of the Black Pearl, complete to the end of her nose and the tips of her outstretched fingers, as she lay enclosed within the box. The substance looked vaguely porous, spongy, like bread dough, and was the color of dried blood. It was that yeasty muck, Mag guessed, which nightly rejuvenated the Black Pearl, and gave her, judging from its smell, the peculiar odor of musty, unaired linen." 

 "She can’t regrow without her bed, and she will have no time to make another before she needs it. A form of mold, I think she must be. Or fungus. Something grown in the shadow of the world.”

A mold, a fungus: A natural biodegrader, the major decomposer that is present in most ecosystems. For the purpose of this next specific part of the interpretation; dismissively dividable into two groups;
Those relying on light for their energy (photoheterotroph) as well as added organic compounds from the environment to satisfy their carbon intake.
And those that derive nourishment from mainly chemical reactions (chemo- or chemoheterotroph) as well as supplemented inorganic energy sources.

The description of mold as a decomposer implies that Domina Pearl is a threat to the natural health of the dream. Her plan to bring about the transformation is a direct hostile symbiotic relationship with her point of origin; Faey.

Why symbiotic?
Because the threat of her recurrence in the future of the dream; a dream in which everything alters depending on the whim of the dreamer, implies that the dreamer doesn't have complete control over Domina Pearl.

This is because the Pearl is a shadow of Faey herself, and she, in turn, casts a reverse shadow in the form of Mag.

Wait what? well...

Think first of my earlier suggestion that the names of Camas Erl and Domina Pearl are oddly similar. This is because Erl is also a shadow of Domina. But a reasonably benign one. Also rooted in lust for power and imbued with a complete disregard for others, but with more of a focus on knowledge and an attraction to the history of Ombria.

But the real interesting part of this theory is Mag.

Think of the drawing that Mag tries to make of her mother with the hereditary piece of charcoal. She draws and out comes an incomplete rendering of Domina Pearl. Think of the fairy tale of the Black Pirate Queen, who hides her knives in her tightly bound hair, just like Mag hides her pins in her hair. But hair of gold and light, not the dark dead thing of the Pearl; the opposite you could almost say.

But the fairy tale states that the child was left on the doorstep by the princess of the other world.
Thus, logically, The Pearl can not have a relationship with Mag.

But it's clear that she does. Their relationship has been innately and unreasoningly hostile from the start. The Pearl seems to take a special delight in threatening Mag. We could ascribe that easily to Domina Pearl's nature as a hostile lifeform. But the rendering of the Pearl by Mag's charcoal necessitates that Mag and Domina Pearl are tied together in some way regardless of reason. How?
In dreams, logic rarely applies.

In this dream realm, the hostile mold, the fungus that is the Pearl takes its build-up from various elements and lives off of the identity of others. in this case as directly as is possible to the point of origin of the dream: Faey. But also secondly, a woman from the other (and this is crucial: more real, but more on that later) world who has been here before: Mag's mother, as related in the fairy tale told by Lydea in the final chapter.

Because Mag's mother is a woman from the real world, she also presents a point of energy and identity intake for the Pearl.
She might even have been a sorceror herself although this is purely speculation, based solely on the other known member of the royal house of the reflected world, Ducon's father, being a sorceror.

As a realm based on dream logic; ideas and associations are powerful. When Mag tries to draw her mother with the bit of magic charcoal, that has in fact a few mother figures to choose from. The most obvious one is Faey. But because Faey is so ancient she has forgotten her own initial form. She chooses appearances on a whim and because she is so mutable, so inconstant, her shape can not be pinned down by the charcoal. The charcoal then goes for the other mother-figure, the biological one. But that one has gone back to the reflected world and has passed out of the charcoal's zone of influence. Thus as close the charcoal can get to an actual drawing of the biological mother; it draws her shadow; the Pearl. But because the Pearl is a thing of shadow and ideas, it takes more from her than just her picture. The drawing literally incorporates her essense and then starts to disintegrate her.

It could also be that the Pearl is in fact a reflection of the original appearance of Faey. but this disregards Mag's biological mother completely. But yet again with dream logic, the idea of the mother is more important than any biological descendancy, so then again when asked to draw Mag's mother, because it can't draw Mag's surrogate mother; the mutable Faey, it draws its shadow; the Pearl.

Or. It might simply be that the next reincarntion of the hostile entity to the dream has already been born in Ombria. And that this time, the idea of the end sits closer to the dreamer than ever.

Doubling back.

A mold, a fungus: A natural biodegrader, the major decomposer that is present in most ecosystems.
Those relying on light for their energy (photoheterotroph) as well as added organic compounds from the environment to satisfy their carbon intake.
And those that derive nourishment from mainly chemical reactions (chemo- or chemoheterotroph) as well as supplemented inorganic energy sources.

Something grown in the shadow of the world. The Dark side of the moon. the shadow cast by it on the surface of the earth.

This is backed up by Domina Pearl desperately needing her 'cocoon' bed to survive. 
Described as a mold, in need of a substitute for energy that is 'yeasty' in origin rather than a construct based on elements of light. When Ducon destroys it, she is simply doomed.

All these things imply there is no light.


And here we come to the big mystery.

The reflected world.

The world where Ducon's father rules, and everything that goes with it. The duality of the reflected world and Ombria.
At the start I've avoided it, because at that point in the storyline their introduction seems like overkill. Much like Ducon's destroying of the 'Cocoon', the inclusion of the reflected world and its characters doesn't actually alter the outcome of the plot. Only Faey does. And with the epilogue, the view has moved away entirely from the reflected world. or seemingly so, because both Lydea and Kyel seem armed with the knowledge of two new fairy tales that help to shed light on some details in the narative. This information comes out of nowhere and helped cement my take on the two worlds.

Anyway, I guess that now the time has come to raise the last curtain.

For this next part we first need to go back to the beginning.

-----

The reflected World

In chapter 1 of Ombria in Shadow, to distract the boy from his grief, Lydea, speaking with Kyel through fingerpuppets, tells him the story of Ombria with the use of her fan. A piece of rice paper with a city on each side. One a delicate painting, the other the dark silhouette of a city. (p4-5)

"One side was a painting, the other an intricately cut silhouette, a shadow world behind a painted world that could be seen when the fan was held up to the light.

It had belonged to Kyel's mother.

Lydea opened the fan slowly, revealed the colored side.

'This is Ombria, my lord,' the goose said. 'The oldest city in the world.'

'The most beautiful city in the world.'

'The most powerful city in the world.'

'The richest city in the world.'

'This is the world of Ombria.' The goose tapped a tiny jade-green palace overlooking the sea, 'This is the palace of the rulers of Ombria. These are the great, busy ports of Ombria. These are the ships of Ombria...' The goose took the fan gently in its beak, angled it in front of the lamp. Light streamed through the fan. 'This is the shadow of Ombria.'

A city rose behind Ombria, a wondrous confection of shadow that towered even over the palace. Shadow ships sailed over the waters; minute shadow people walked the painted streets.
The future ruler of Ombria, lips parted, surveyed his domain.

'Tell me about the shadow city. Will I rule there too?'

The Goose's voice became dreamy, entwined in the tale.

'The shadow city of Ombria is as old as Ombria. Some say it is a different city completely, exisiting side by side with Ombria in a time so close to us that there are places - streets, gates, old houses - where one time fades into the other, one city becomes the other. Others say both cities exist in one time, this moment, and you walk through both of them each day, just as, walking down a street, you pass through shadow and light... So, my lord, who can say if you will rule  the shadow city? you rule and you do not rule: it is the same, for if you do rule the shadow city, you may never know it.

Then how- Then how do they know it is there?"

Here the story is cut off, on the cusp of a question that through circumstance is not answered, a technique that Mckillip will employ 2 more times over the course of the novel, always with themes and questions pertaining to the mysteries at the heart of the story. (once With the Dreams coming to Life conversation. The other is the 'It happens' conversation, both integral to my Dream theory)

Mckillip, in these three conversations that are as close to revelations to the true nature of Ombria as she's willing to go are usually immediately dropped after an important but abstract suggestion. On their own, these conversations are misleading and too abstract to follow to their intended meaning; but put them together and ideas start to present themselves.

So it begins. With the story of a fan and two cities.

Having read the novel almost twice over the last few months I've come to realise something.

When Lydea tells Kyel the story of Ombria and identifies the painted city as being Ombria, she is wrong. Ombria is not the painted city, it is the other: the shadow rearing up behind the painting.
Or rather; the Ombria in which Lydea resides is not the painted version of Ombria, it is the darkened version. 

What I'm suggesting here points to an established, but not quite adressed yet, duality. A dream as reflection of the real world. 2 cities with Ombria as the dream of whatever the other city is named.

Think of the greatest suggestion for this the book has, the city's name itself; Ombria, from the latin Umbra, for shadow. While Ombria is named and named often, characters never actually name the other city. Ducon's father is the only one to speak of his realm in tones of meaningful authority, and even then he doesn't give its true name; instead he calls it simply; the reflected world.

For now we can disregard naming and focus on the nature of Ombria and its relation to shadow, specifically its relation to the Shadow City. Camas Erl's use of the name; as the moment of transformation.

For this; ask yourself; what is the opposite of shadow?

The opposite of shadow is light. But that is a glib answer that doesn't take a few things into account; at its core the opposite of light is darkness. Shadow needs light to exist. therefore it can not be light's exact opposite.
Shadow is in fact a state only brought about by the collaboration of a source or sources of light and an object.

Take here, as slyly referenced several times over the course of the novel that the object in question is the moon, the lightsource the sun.
The moon absorbs the light cast by the sun and plunges what is behind it into a vague state that exists out of varying shades of  darkness. The moon's side that is not at all exposed to the sun is in its darkest shadow, the umbra. its surface is darkened, shadowed.
Then the state the other side is in, made fully visible and defined by light; is illuminated.
In the scenario of an object exposed to light, to the object itself in these two states; the opposite of shadow is illumination.

But what if the object in question is not the moon, but something else?
And so we arrive; at the Dark doorway.

 "It was only another doorway: this one distinguished by painted irises

twining up the carved wooden posts.
One post was cracked, bent under the shifting weight of the ceiling,
the paint long warped away. The other still bloomed irises in delicate greens and purples.

Ducon stopped. He stood there for a long time, at the threshold beneath the lintel, in the moment between worlds, watching the flat slab of dark not even the light of his candle could enter, while Kyel finally fell asleep against his shoulder."

Let me suggest here that though the dark doorway is indeed a portal; a passage, it isn't actually a doorway at all. And that it is instead; a mirror.
In this case the light that hits the mirror is not absorbed, but reflected.

“I rule, in the reflected world."

“This palace,” he had said, “is a small city, past lying close to present like one shoe next to another. If you look at them in a mirror, left becomes right, present becomes past…” 

When Ducon looks at the flat slab of dark that no light of his can penetrate, he is in fact looking at the back of a mirror. (There's some odd shennanigans regarding rules about who can pass through the dark doorway/mirror and the reasons given for them but I'm disregarding those here because there seems to be alot of leeway to them that they don't actually help with theory-shooting.)

From Ombria's side it is darkness, intangible and undispellable.
From the other side it must be something other. How would Ducon's father see it; is a question we must ask ourselves.
Remember this, he calls his world "...I rule in the reflected world."
He calls his world a reflection. But it's not just a reflection.
The opposite of Shadow is Illumination. Illuminate a mirror and all you get is a reflection.

Of course a simpler, and less assumption-based view on Ducon's father's quote is that dreams are indeed merely reflections of the people, places and events that occur and populate our own lives. But as in the novel, there needs to be a means for the real world, Ducon's father and all the faces drawn by Ducon in his charcoal sketches, to actively enter the dreamworld. I still am of the opinion that the Dark doorway must be a physical object that has a presence in both worlds. As such a mirror is a simple and highly suggestive item, emblematic of the themes of duality, shadow and light.

This, admittedly bold assumption points to the place in which the events of the novel take place being the dark side of the mirror.

As we have already established  and if you follow that the version of Ombria where most or all of the events take place in the novel is a dream realm, dreamt up by Faey. A simple suggestion starts to presents itself.

Think of our first meeting with Ducon Greve on page 5, a child from the other world whose hair is described as stark white and whose silvery eyes give away nothing but light.
Ducon's preferred means to create art is through the use of charcoal, in Ombria he paints only in shadows. But in the one time when he does use colour; red from his own blood, He imbues his painting with magic and what flows forth from his creation is anti-shadow to light up and Illuminate the Dark Door.

Think here also of the novel's climax. Such a transformation would not be possible in a larger and real world, since the influence of Domina Pearl must necessarily stretch far; the delvings, travels and gathering of such a power-hungry creature would have had to be far-ranging. unless of course that world is limited, contained. To have her influence retconned, excised out of reality in the real world stretches the bounds of credibility. more on this later.

Ducon, in the climax, forced and coaxed by Domina Pearl and Camas Erl, respectively, into drawing a new door in the hypothetical shadow cast by the Dark Doorway, draws his door on the ground with Faey's magical charcoal, thereby imbuing the drawing with Faey's power, same as when he coaxed the shadow of his father out of the other world by drawing him with Faey's charcoal on his sketches. If it's not Faey's magic, Faey's power that performs this deed then it is the power in Ducon's own drawings;

 "I do not live underground, and though I am very powerful, I am not immortal.” He loosed Ducon’s arm, touched his face lightly with long, hard fingers. “You seem to have inherited that power in odd ways. You can recognize it and it comes out of your drawings. But you are not a sorcerer?” “Neither sorcerer nor ruler. Just a man with a piece of charcoal."

Regardless of where the power comes from; He builds the drawing of the door around his bloody handprint. With blood that is imbued with the genetic memory of that other world. A link to that world and the hereditary magic endowed on him by his father working in tandem with the magic in the charcoal to make the door into the other place real.

Ducon, falling down, opens his drawn door. and from it flows magical anti-shadow that illuminates the dark doorway, like a two-way mirror, and dispells the barriers that seperate the two cities.
The moment of transformation where both realms overlap and create jointly with their being; the Shadow City, composed of the cities of Light and Dark, Shadow and Illumination. A temporary realm of possibility where the entire construct becomes fluid and malleable in order to accomodate a 'rewriting'.

Dark and Light, Shadow and Illumination, Dream and Reality.

Think of when Ducon, earlier in the novel, was sitting in front of the dark doorway and drawing with Faey's magic charcoal whatever visions lie on the other side; what he draws is truth, real. Faey lets Ducon channel her magic through the bit of charcoal, coupled with Ducon's innate aptitude for sorcery that only comes out in his paintings and what he draws simply must be real. The visions that ensue describe a larger world than the novel itself describes Ombria as being. To the surrounding lands of novel-Ombria itself there's only a handful of references: outlying islands where the pirates go, and where Domina pearl gets her resources from. There are also some minor references to holdings of lands from the younger nobles.
But although these locations are spoken of, they are never described.  They are referenced only in neutered sentences. The impression given seems to be that it is a very limited world.

Ducon, in front of the door imagines what lies beyond and paints it. And his paintings describe vibrancy. They describe space, distance and the need for speed. A larger world (p208).

"Airy palaces, endless woods, and frothy seas where swift ships crest the waves with unicorn horn bowsprits.

May I point out here that Mckillip is a genius; in a few seemingly innocent sentences she has pointed to every possible element that could show you how much larger the other world is in relation to Ombria.

One face in particular it drew at random.
Ducon found it on a figure riding through the wood, or standing on the top of one of the high towers.

Once or twice the man wearing that face walked the streets of a city that might have been Ombria, if Ombria could harbor an entire forest of ships’ masts, and the windows overlooking its twisted

streets were filled with flowers."

A large amount of ships are in the dock, a veritable forest of masts, such a large amount that the docks of Ombria wouldn't be able to find place for them. Again, pointing to a larger world, a city in touch, in trade with that world, active, functioning.
Meanwhile in ombria the docks are barely in use because of the pirate fleet of Domina Pearl, limited to just her ships and the occasional local fishing ship.
Because of the pirates' depredations Ombria is 'conveniently' isolated and its connection with the world at large becomes irrelevant. Though we are told that the city was great once (p58).

"Ombria was a great, thriving, beautiful city once. Not in our memories, but that’s what all our fathers say."

Told but never seen.
Some clues also lie in the final fairy tale, the one shedding light on Mag's origins.

 "because it was half of the best and half of the worst, and neither world would accept the baby." 

Mag as a baby, in the arms of her mother, crosses from Light in to the Dark. without a problem. When her mother tries to return with her she is unable to, implying that the world of Light has the upper hand, that it is stronger than the world of dark; that the Dark is subjugated to the Light, that as the primary world the reflected world has power over its secondary world; ShadowOmbria.

-----

Contradictions of Light and Dark

Now of course, there are contradictions to this theory of Light and Dark, and Reality and Dream.
Or elements that seem to contradict this.

Most glaringly; the conversation between Ducon and his father in the penultimate chapter. A short dialogue between the two that seems to shed light on the entire Mystery (p280).

“We came because in your utter despair you found a way to open the door between our worlds.

The shadow world is your hope.
When you no longer despair, you no longer need us; we fade and you forget."

"When the sorceress who lives underground is disturbed enough by events to make her way up into the troubled, desperate world above, then she shifts the balance between despair and hope, between light and shadow.

She draws us to your world, to restore the ancient balance between us. But it was you who searched for us in your drawings, you who saw into shadow, you who opened the door.”

Some ways how this could be interpreted still to suit my theory:

The shadow world is your hope, could be interpreted as ' the change of the two cities of light and dark into the shadow world; the shadow city is the only way to bring about your hope'

You who saw into shadow; the drawings of charcoal, again the hope of change.

"He stood there for a long time, at the threshold beneath the lintel, in the moment between worlds, watching the flat slab of dark not even the light of his candle could enter, while Kyel finally fell asleep against his shoulder. Air trembled on the threshold, smelling of grass, slow rain, lavender. A light sparked, reflecting Ducon’s candle; how near or far, he could not tell in the utter darkness. There were voices, whisperings. A bell began its slow dirge, faint and far away within the shadow, for someone who had died. Ducon felt the icy hand of sorrow and wonder glide over him. Shaken, unable to move, he heard a second bell, louder, on this side of the shadow, its great open mouth speaking the word that Royce Greve could not. Ducon closed his burning eyes and wondered if, in the shadow city, someone stood like him, in a secret place, listening to the mourning bell of a city within a tale." 

Yeah this seems to be undeniable. except. that these are all Ducon's impressions. as an observer within the world of Ombria; within the dream he can not have an accurate unbiased view of the whole narrative. he is skewed towards thinking of the other side of the doorway in terms of darkness and shadow, because he believes himself to live on the side of light. We are all the heroes of our own stories, after all.

The problem with both of these 2 segments is that the arguments can really work both ways. Kyel and Lydea's Ombria as the city of dark and as well as the city of light.

Either way, though it remains a distinct possibility that Novel-Ombria is the light side of the 2 cities, I'm finding more arguments pointing to it being its dark side.

What seems clear is that:
Because there are only 2 people who 'see' the magic flow behind Faey's power and both those people have a parent from the reflected world, the mystery must be rooted in that world, must somehow originate from it.
They see behind the veil, because they originate from behind it, if only a generation removed.

It's implied that this other place is more magical than Ombria. Ducon's father rules there and he is a powerful sorceror, though he isn't Faey's opposite as he is not, like her, immortal.
When asked about her he gives a curious response.

“Is that her name? The sorceress who lives underground? We never knew.” 

Here is the crucial little thing. 'We never knew' points to a lasting state of not knowing. A longer awareness of the 'Sorceress who lives underground'.
This stands in stark contrast to the ending and the inhabitants of Novel-Ombria at the end of the novel, who have forgotten everything that has come before.

"We came because in your utter despair you found a way to open the door between our worlds. The shadow world is your hope. When you no longer despair, you no longer need us; we fade and you forget." 

Ducon's father also points to Ducon's mother, who seems to have forgotten about Ducon's father quite quickly. Whereas he never forgot her.

 “Will I forget you? Did my mother? She never spoke of you.” “Perhaps,” his father said gently. “Perhaps not. I never forgot her."

The characters we follow, like dreamers who awaken and forget what they have dreamed about, have forgotten the events of the novel. That sort of malleability is not natural. That amount of Power from Faey can not simply be.

There must be an explanation and I believe that all these things align with my initial interpretation that Ombria is the dream dreamt up by Faey in imitation of the reflected world, which is the actual, real world, where Ducon's father lives and rules. Because of her power, the Dream becomes in a sense real. its characters, its inhabitants become real and though they are subject to her power, because she doesn't meddle and sticks to herself; they lead their own lives, out of the immediate power-orbit of the dreamer. But whenever she deems it necessary to intervene they can still be altered without remorse or compunction.

But we're not done yet. There's one more thing to talk about.

-----

The relevance of puppets

So then, A mirror.
This is the theory that I ascribe to.
The light of reality hits the Reflected World and shines on the mirror and it casts a shadow behind it; a haven for the dreamer; Faey.

But there is just one more final tangle to this theory.
We've seen again and again these themes of duality and shadow come in to play. There is one more we must adress.

The mirror must be hit by light, real or metaphorical, in order to create the dreamshadow of Ombria.
In this world that is hit by the 'light' there must be a being that gives rise to Faey; Faey's point of origin or her equal reflection.

But I'd like to align myself to the theory of an Equal Awake Identity to Faey.
Maybe that magicker, the sorceress in the real world who imbued the mirror, and through it the shadow, the dreamrealm in the dark with her own magic and identity.

I've mentioned before that in the epilogue Kyel and Lydea are back in their own palace in Ombria, but that they are changed and empowered with new knowledge. This is because they have in fact been behind the curtain and have seen the overarching narrative. They are privy to the secrets of the wizard of Oz, they know who she is.
This is why we can assign a place for Domina Pearl in the grand narrative through the use of the Sorceress's fairy tale. And why the fairy tale of the Locket tells us about Mag's origins. These things are true because they have been seen, or been told. regardless of how; they have witnessed it and their stories should be accepted as such.

But outside of the fairy tales themselves, there is something else.

Up until now I've not mentioned the puppets much. They are in fact hand or fingerpuppets that are the primary means through which Lydea and Kyel communicate and how the prince is told the fairy tales that give us so many clues to the nature of the story. But the telling is not their only purpose.
They are also significant of themselves.

I've mentioned how Domina Pearl's identity has been relegated solely to her Pirate queen doll at the end of the novel but there are also other dolls.
In chapter 1 Lydea, aptly because of her naivete, uses the goose puppet to talk to Kyel. Kyel speaks to her through the lordly falcon, from Peregrine his grandfather, then through the king of rats, with richly endowed accroutements to match his stately tone, and in the final chapter Lydea uses with confidence the wily fox puppet with the fiery red pelt to match her hair. Kyel then reveals Faey's inconstant features with a puppet with eyes of Emerald and Amethyst wearing a black coat that shimmers with changing colour. For the story of Mag and her heritage, Lydea uses the Black Sheep puppet with silvery eyes and a faint smile.

I added all the descriptive addendums to make it clear that the puppets weren't described without reason. There's a point to all of them. They are symbolic of the characters they represent, their character and growth.

So what then are we to make of the inclusion of a new puppet, solely present in the final chapter, after the receiving of knowledge, deemed important enough, for some reason, to be mentioned, to be included in the conversation that kicks off the catharsis, the moment of revelation?
The puppet that has pride of place, that actually opens the final chapter, as if it is the most important one of all?

A puppet that in the conversation of light and shadow has already proven valuable and interesting both in my theories and in the novel itself?

The puppet of the Moon.

With eyes of crystal and hands shaped like stars.

"I will be the moon,” Kyel said. “You must make a wish to me.” Lydea slid her fingers into the fox’s head, with its sly smile and fiery velvet pelt. “I wish,” she said, “that you would take your nap.” “No,” the prince said patiently, “you must make a true wish. And I will grant it because I am the moon.”

The moon can grant wishes, because it has the power to grant the true and final word over everything.

Whatever the moon is; actual light hitting the mirror, the metaphor for Faey's reflection, the 'awake' identity to Faey's dreaming one, the creator of the mirror or the one who imbued it with power...

She is the point of origin of it all, the driving magic to the realm of Ombria and the one who has the ultimate power over it.

After all, how did Lydea and Kyel get back from behind the Dark Doorway?

"-and how would I get back to Ombria?”
The moon rose again, lifted a golden hand. "On a star." 
The governess smiled.