The mysteries of Ombria

The Fairy Tales

To figure out the core mysteries behind Ombria in Shadow, we need to take these three Fairy Tales as scripture. Though all must be looked at with a wary and scrutinizing eye because Lydea, the teller of the fairy tales, is an unreliable narrator with an incomplete and skewed view of the narrative.

The Fairy tale of The Fan of Two Cities

"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?"

The Fairy Tale of the Sorceroress. Epilogue

The fox stroked the prince’s hair while he shook away the moon and replaced it with the sorceress, who had one amethyst eye and one emerald, and who wore a black cloak that shimmered with ribbons of faint, changing colors. “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.” “My tutor goes everywhere in Ombria. Maybe she knows where the sorceress lives.” “I wouldn’t be surprised at anything your tutor knows.” The sorceress descended, long nose down on the silk. 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. 

The Fairy Tale of the Princess and the Locket, Epilogue

"She settled herself beside him, absently picked up the black sheep, whose eyes were silvery, whose long mouth curled into the faintest smile. “Tell me the story of the locket.” “Once upon a time, my lord, in the best and the worst of all possible worlds, a princess fell in love with a young man who loved to draw pictures.” “Like Ducon.” “Very like your cousin. Every day for a year, she gave him a rose. She would pick it at dawn from her father’s gardens and then take it to the highest place in the castle, a place so high that everyone had forgotten about it except for the doves that nested beneath the broken roof. There, she had found a secret door between the best and the worst of the worlds. Every day, they would meet on the threshold of that door. She would give him a rose, and he would give her a drawing of the city he lived in. They loved each other very much, but of course they could never marry, because they were from different worlds: she was a princess and he an artist who had to paint tavern signs to keep himself fed. “One day, after a year had passed, the princess brought him a child along with a rose. It was the happiest day of her life because she had given him their child, and also the saddest day of her life, because he came to her with his heart’s blood on his paper instead of a drawing. Someone had seen him with the princess and had punished him. So, in her love and sorrow, she crossed the threshold to his world, to stay with him while he breathed his last.” “His last what?” “Breath. In her grief, she pulled the locket from her throat and placed into it a rose petal, three drops of his blood, and a sliver of his charcoal. But after he died, she found that she could not get back into her world with the child, because it was half of the best and half of the worst, and neither world would accept the baby. But the princess, after many days and nights of ceaseless weeping and searching, finally left the child with a wise and powerful woman who would know, with her vast knowledge and experience, how to raise a child of both worlds. At last the princess could return to her own world. The only thing she had to leave with her child was the locket, which held all the memories of her love…” 

The Intimations

Next, there are three conversations that ask important and interesting questions that also lie close to the central mysteries of the novel.

The Two Cities

"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.

Mckillip, in these three conversations that are as close to revelations to the true nature of Ombria in shadow 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.

Dreams coming to life

(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.'"

It happens

'"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."