A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pageant
by D. G. D. Davidson
VI. Waterlogged
First it was embarrassing, and then it was depressing. Another day in the life.
I had grown accustomed to walking places with a pony by my side. The average pony thought nothing of walking several miles every day as she went about her business, so most travel in Canterlot was on foot, and whenever I left our small “campus,” which consisted of one wing of Celestia’s school and our cathedral across the way, I almost always went with Lyra.
And that’s why I just wasn’t thinking when, as Carrot Top and I walked back toward the rec room where the other ponies were waiting, I gave her a friendly pat on the withers.
I realized my mistake as soon as she turned her head to me and gave me a sharp glare. I swiftly snatched my hand back.
The door of the rec room was open a crack. I leaned my shoulder against it, and just as I did, I heard Bon Bon’s distinctly surly voice say, “Lyra, if he bothers you so much, why don’t you just tell him to take a long walk off a short airdock?”
Lyra’s voice replied, “Bon Bon—”
I immediately froze, but the door was already swinging open, and Lyra stopped speaking. Inside, all the ponies looked over toward us with wide eyes.
For a few beats, none of us spoke, but then I gestured toward Carrot Top and said, “Uh, hey. Carrots is back.”
“Oh, good,” said Berry, who was sprawled across one of the tables. “Everything’s twice as fun when we can watch her face change colors.”
Carrot Top cleared her throat. “I’ve decided to help Mister Andrews with this production. That’s all there is to it.”
“Well.” I clapped my hands together. “Since we didn’t get through it before, I’d really like to explain to all of you what this is about so you know what you’re getting into. I think it would be best if we headed over to the cathedral, where I can—”
“No,” said Lyra.
I paused, lowered my hands, and met her eyes.
She didn’t look away from me, and she didn’t look embarrassed. She looked right at me, but I couldn’t read her expression.
“Lyra, honey, the cathedral’s the only place we have to perform this in. You’ll have to—”
“No.”
I paused again.
“I’m not going back in there. I already told you that.”
“But—”
“No.”
Nobody said anything for a few seconds. With a knit brow, Time Turner checked his pocket watch.
“I’ll stay too,” said Bon Bon as she placed a foreleg over Lyra’s shoulders. She gave me her usual sneer, and Lyra at last dropped her gaze from my face.
“Bon Bon,” I said, “it would be really helpful if—”
“You’ve told all this to Lyra before, right? She can fill me in.”
Lyra mumbled, “That’s true. I can. I think I remember most of it.”
“What we do,” said Time Turner, “let’s do quickly. We are wasting time.”
Minuette glared at him, put a hoof to her muzzle, and cleared her throat loudly.
For a moment, he looked at her with eyes wide and mouth slack, but then he raised his eyebrows, sucked in his breath slightly, and said, “Oh. Oh! Never mind, take as much time as you need.”
Minuette rolled her eyes and muttered, “At least he’s getting better.”
“I’ve taken all the time I need,” I said. “Let’s go. Lyra, Bon Bon, we’ll see you later.”
Lyra nodded. Bon Bon smirked. I turned around and marched out with the others in tow.
As we made our way across the courtyard, I thought of what I might have done to upset Lyra. We’d just had a fight and called each other names, of course, but we did that all the time. The words I’d heard Bon Bon say before I opened the door gnawed at me: did Lyra really find me that annoying? Did she only hang out with me because she was being nice?
We pushed our way into the cathedral, which was nearly empty except for an elderly mare praying a rosary in front of the tabernacle. The church was never empty when I needed it to be.
I held the heavy door open for the others, blessed myself from the holy water font, and shut the door quietly.
Like many modern church buildings, the cathedral had a baptistery large enough for baptisms by immersion. Ours was a cross-shaped pool, lined with tile and inset into the floor just in front of the vestibule. It had a brass railing to keep anyone from falling in, and beside it was a holy water font connected to the pool by a fountain that usually babbled quietly during services, though now it was off. After I shut the door, I turned around to find Derpy hovering in the air near the baptistery. She was gazing at the big Easter candle, studded with incense beads, which stood next to the fountain on a tall, brass candlestick.
“What’s this?” she asked as, with a hoof, she knocked the candle over.
I ran forward, but was too far away. Time Turner tried to grab the candlestick, but missed. Derpy reached out for it, but caught a hoof on the top of the railing, tripped, and fell straight down into the pool with a loud splash that sent water cascading across the floor. The candle tipped, broke into two pieces, and fell in after her. The candlestick hit the floor with a bang.
Derpy lifted her sodden head out of the water, blinked her crooked eyes, and said, “Oopsie. My bad.”
Leaning her front hooves on the railing, Dinky giggled. “You’re funny, mama.”
“Congratulations, Derpy,” I said as I righted the now empty candlestick, “you’re a Christian.”
Time Turner frowned at me, so I added, “I’m kidding.”
Carrot Top rattled the rail. “How do you get this open?”
I pointed her to the little gate on one end, and she quickly ran in to help Derpy out of the water.
“I’ll pay for everything, of course,” said Time Turner as he adjusted his tie. “I’m terribly sorry, and—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I answered.
“But you must let me—”
“No, really. Don’t worry about it. The bishop wouldn’t hear of you paying for anything. Believe me, I know him. Let me just take the candle back to the sacristy, and I think maybe we have some towels back there or something.”
Carrot Top had pulled Derpy out, and just as I stepped through the railing and bent over the baptistery to pick up the broken candle, I heard Carrot Top shout, “No, Derpy!”
Derpy shook like a dog, sending a deluge of ice-cold holy water over me.
After I crossed myself, I stood up with the candle’s fragments in hand and said, “Thanks. I probably needed that.” Dripping and muttering, I marched up the aisle toward the sanctuary. On the way, I had to pass the elderly mare with the rosary, so I bowed to her and said, “Just don’t mind us, ma’am.”
She replied with an ornery glare, so I quickly stepped through a narrow door beside the altar and into the small, cluttered room wherein we kept all the little knickknacks we needed throughout the year. Unsure what to do with it, I set the candle on a counter and began rifling through drawers in the dressers and cabinets. I found altar cloths, chasubles, and lots and lots of surplices, cut for both humans and ponies, but I didn’t come up with a single towel.
I considered for a moment whether it would be sacrilegious to wipe off a wet mare with purificators, but in the end I decided to let charity outweigh rubrical niceties, so I grabbed several of the small, white cloths, each stitched with a red cross and used to clean chalices, patens, and ciboria. I walked back into the sanctuary with them in hand, only to find Derpy, still dripping wet, trying to pry the tabernacle off the wall.
She hovered in the air above the altar and had the golden chest between her front hooves. Time Turner tugged in vain on one of her back legs.
“What’s in here?” she asked as I walked in.
“Good grief, Derpy, stop that. Please.” I dropped the purificators, ran to her, and tried to pull her hooves off the tabernacle.
“What’s in it?” she repeated.
“Jesus. Look, just sit down—”
Minuette walked to Time Turner’s side and frowned at me. “Mister Andrews, are you saying you have an adult human stuffed in this box? But they opened this during your ceremony, and all I saw was a bowl of little crackers.”
“Yes, exactly. Why don’t we step out of the sanctuary and back into the nave, please?”
“The what?” Minuette asked.
“Down there.” I pointing past the altar and out into the room.
With a vacant grin, Derpy let go of the tabernacle and flew away. As she did, she passed over the altar, and though she gave no sign that she was aware of it, her hind hooves caught on the white altar cloth and pulled it from the mensa. The cloth crumpled on the floor as Derpy obliviously settled on the tiles in front of the sanctuary. The others followed her.
I glanced at the altar. It was mostly of wood, but a slab of polished marble, now revealed, was inlaid in its east end.
The mare who’d been trying to say her rosary was still glaring at me, but I ignored her. I walked to the ambo and leaned on it as if about to deliver a homily.
“Ponies,” I said, “we are gathered here today to get down to the business of me finally telling you, without interruption, what the hell we’re doing.”
The elderly mare stood up in a huff and marched toward the vestibule. Carrot Top, with an obviously sympathetic look in her eyes, gazed after her.
I pointed toward the enormous wreath, almost six feet wide, which stood on a stand on the opposite side of the sanctuary from the ambo. It was, so far, the only Christmas decoration in the room, but come Christmas Eve, every seminarian would have the task of scurrying over this place and dressing it up for the season. “See that?” I said. “You’ll notice it’s got three purple candles and one pink one, except we call it ‘rose,’ and if you say pink, some priest’ll get pissed off. We light one of those candles every Sunday in the weeks leading up to the twenty-fifth of December. We call that time ‘Advent,’ and we are supposed to spend it fasting and afflicting ourselves, but we usually eat cookies and drink eggnog instead.”
Minuette cleared her throat and called out, as if asking a question in a lecture hall, “And why is one of the candles pink? What is the significance of the colors?”
“I have no idea,” I replied. “But on the Sunday when the pink candle is lit, the priest wears pink clothes. I assume it’s to keep him humble.”
“And what’s eggnog?” asked Time Turner.
“That,” I said, wagging a finger at him, “you will learn in due time.”
Derpy raised a hoof like a kid in class. “And what’s in the big, shiny box?”
“It’s called a tabernacle,” I said. “And—”
Derpy nodded as if that satisfied her even before I’d explained what the tabernacle was for, and Dinky whispered loudly, “What’s a tabernacle, mama?”
“That’s like a barnacle,” Derpy whispered back, “except it attaches to a tavern instead of a barn.”
Time Turner slapped a hoof to his face.
With a grunt of annoyance, I slammed my fist down on the top of the ambo. “Enough! Enough! I said no interruptions this time! Criminey, I thought ponies were supposed to have manners!”
“You’ll have to excuse them,” said Carrot Top. “I’m afraid they’re not quite decent.”
“I’m beginning to agree with you.” I walked out from behind the ambo and paced with my hands behind my back. “Reader’s Digest version, as I said.” I glanced at Carrot Top. Her eyes followed me, but I couldn’t read her face. “I don’t mean to offend you, but—”
“Just go ahead, Jack,” said Carrot Top quietly. “It’s your traditions and your world, after all, and I suppose I wouldn’t appreciate you getting upset if I told you about the One Queen and the princesses.”
I stopped pacing. “Oh. Well, in that case, it’s like this: there were people who called themselves Israel, and for a long time they were slaves. They worshiped, er I mean they honored, one God. A ruler of sorts, you might say. A king. Their God freed them, and they went to the homeland he’d promised them, but they had nothing but trouble—”
“What kind of trouble?” Berry Punch called.
“All kinds. Invaders, in-fighting, bad kings—”
“I thought they only had this one king,” said Minuette.
“Uh . . . yes, well, he delegates. Let’s put it that way. Anyway, they had a rough time of it, and most of them were even dragged out of their land by some of the worst invaders, but a few made it back and set up their kingdom again. Then another empire conquered them, and they fought that empire off only to get conquered yet again. This last empire to take them over was the biggest and most powerful our world had ever seen, but the people of this Israel had a prophecy that a new king would rise up and free them—”
“Well, he tells it badly,” said Berry Punch as she threw herself on her side and rested her cheek against a hoof, “but it sounds like it might be a fine story. Like a novel.”
I cleared my throat. “So while the empire is ruling, this man Joseph, to be played by our Time Turner here, finds out that the woman he’s planning to marry, to be played by our Derpy, is . . . er, going to have a happy event. But that’s not his doing, and in fact it’s a . . . miracle? Do you guys have that word?”
I looked at the ponies and met blank faces.
“What’s a miracle, mama?” Dinky whispered.
“That’s like a tabernacle,” Derpy whispered back, “except it attaches to a mirror.”
Time Turner, with lips tight, made a strangled noise deep in his throat.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s call it magic, and we’ll work out the details later. It was magic.”
“Oh!” cried Carrot Top with a start. She looked around at the others. “Like the One Queen! She made ponies with magic.”
“Allegedly,” said Minuette as she raised a hoof for emphasis.
I tugged at my collar. “Uh, no, that’s not quite—”
The ponies, however, nodded as if they understood.
I sighed. “Hey, you know what? Like I said, let’s work out the details later. Now, an angel appears to Joseph . . . do you know what an angel is?”
Dinky, resting between Derpy’s hooves, turned her eyes up to her mother’s face, and Derpy whispered, “It’s a big metal thing a blacksmith makes shoes on.”
Time Turner rolled his eyes. “Is it a kind of spirit?” he asked.
“Yes, actually,” I answered. “How did you—? No, never mind.”
“Well, I like spirits,” said Berry Punch with a grin.
Time Turner rolled his eyes again.
I shook my head. “Anyway, an angel appears to Joseph and tells him to go ahead and marry Derpy—I mean Mary—because the upcoming happy event is all magical and stuff.”
I paused again and again saw the ponies nodding. Here was when I expected some sort of objection, but the idea of magical babies apparently didn’t faze them in the slightest.
“You know, back on Earth, this is where I get laughed out of the room. Time Turner? Minuette? Aren’t Timekeepers supposed to be skeptics?”
“We are,” Time Turner answered, “and that’s why we don’t draw conclusions until we have sufficient data. I know next to nothing of your world, so how should I know what conditions obtain there? I’m frankly unsure why you’re asking me this, as nothing you’ve said thus far sounds particularly improbable, even if it is not commonplace.”
“Really? Huh. Well, anyway, the ruler of the empire decided it was time for a census, so he ordered everyone to go back to the town his family came from—”
“What an awful way to take a census,” said Carrot Top. “Sounds like a nightmare. Wouldn’t it be better just to know where everypony is living now?”
“It must have been a nightmare,” I replied. “But this Joseph, having recently married Mary, had to pack up and leave his hometown and head down to a tiny little place called Bethlehem. The name means ‘house of bread.’”
“Was there a bakery there?” Berry Punch asked.
“There wasn’t much of anything there. But Joseph had to go, and he had to take his family with him, because he was actually descended from what used to be the royal family, though they’d been out of power for some time, and that royal family came from Bethlehem.”
I walked back to the ambo and leaned on it. “There must have been other people crowding into the place, because the only spot Mary and Joseph could find was in a barn. It might have actually been a cave, or it might have been a room off a house. One way or the other, there must have been animals kept there, because the happy event happened, and Mary put the new baby in a manger. Do you all know—?”
I expected Derpy to unleash another malapropism, but instead all the ponies snorted.
“Everypony knows what a manger is,” said Berry Punch, waving a hoof. “What else do you keep your hay in?”
“Right. Of course. But Mary put a baby in, and surely you think that’s a strange—”
“It sounds practical to me,” said Minuette, “if she didn’t have a proper crib available.”
“It might even be rather cozy for a baby,” said Carrot Top.
“Fine. Fine. Ponies ruin everything.” I tugged at my collar. “There were shepherds in the hills nearby, out with their sheep—”
“What’s a shepherd?” called Berry Punch.
Dinky looked up at Derpy, who scratched her head and said, “I got nothin’.”
After banging my forehead a few times on the ambo, I shouted, “Really? C’mon, it’s somebody who watches sheep! Sheep who can’t talk! Look, an angel told the shepherds about the new baby—”
“For our production,” said Time Turner after clearing his throat, “where do you propose to get—?”
“I’m going to call in a few favors. Don’t worry about it. Now, the shepherds came to see the baby, right? After that, probably some time after, came a group of astrologers who claimed they’d seen a star telling them of a new king being born.”
Carrot Top lifted her head, frowned, turned toward the others, and said, “Astrology? Isn’t that a zebra thing?”
I paused. “Wait, you have that here—?”
“Were they zebras?” Berry Punch called.
“Uh, no. Probably Persians.”
“Ah,” said Time Turner. “They were cats.”
I slapped my face.
“So the cats on this world talk, but the sheep don’t,” muttered Minuette. “Is that what we’re to understand?”
“It would seem so,” Time Turner answered.
“A strange world indeed,” Minuette whispered.
I closed my eyes, gripped the corners of the ambo, and took a series of deep breaths. “If you are all finished speculating, I was trying to say—”
“Is this the extent of the narrative we are to enact?” Time Turner asked.
I paused again. “Well, yes. I suppose it is.”
He nodded. “A reenactment of an unusual nativity. It is not a typical birthday celebration, of course, but, as we can see, it is not an especially outlandish custom once we have the facts in order.” He leaned over to look at Carrot Top. “Miss Top? Any objection? You are usually the most sensitive of our little coterie.”
A small smile flitted across Carrot Top’s mouth. “None, Doctor Turner. But thank you for asking. I believe Mister Andrews and I have reached an understanding.”
Minuette, with brow furrowed, took to her hooves. “This baby, was she—?”
“He,” I said.
“Ah, beg pardon. Was he the fulfillment of the prophecy, then?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And he fought off the empire?”
“No.”
Time Turner tipped his head back and gazed at the ceiling. “That is not especially strange, either. The Long Count records at least eighty-two prophecies I can recall off-hoof. About seventeen are fulfilled, fifty-three are still pending—as one might say—and twelve were unfulfilled and cannot be fulfilled because of the changes in historical circumstances. Prophecy is an exceedingly rare magic, after all, and it is by no means an exact science.”
“This was a bit different,” I said. “They were looking for one kind of salvation, but he brought another.”
“Ooh, a twist,” said Berry. “It is like a novel. So what happened to this guy?”
Still leaning one elbow on the ambo, I turned and pointed up at the crucifix hovering over the altar.
“They did that to a baby?” Derpy cried.
“He was grown up at the time. But it was the same guy, yes.” Stepping behind the altar and under the crucifix, I added, “When a man’s hung up this way, all the weight is on forelimbs, you see, which are pulled out of their sockets, placing pressure on the chest so he can’t breathe except by pushing against the nail in his—”
“Utterly barbaric,” Carrot Top hissed as she looked away.
“Yes it is.”
“Who put him up there?” Minuette asked.
“I did.” I walked up to the bare altar and placed my hands on it. “All of you, come up here.”
None of the ponies moved.
“No, I’m serious. Come here.”
Time Turner and Minuette looked at each other. Minuette shrugged and said, “I have two vials, Chronomaster, and humans are physically weak.”
Time Turner nodded and walked up to me. “What is it?”
I ran a hand over the smooth marble of the altar stone. “The people of Israel had a ritual of blood sacrifice. Do you know what that is?”
“I’ve an inkling,” Time Turner answered.
“They’d take animals—the non-talking kind, of course—and kill them on top of a stone somewhat like this one.”
“So you continue the practice. What blood do you offer on this stone?”
I turned and pointed at the crucifix again. “His.”
“And you said before that he’s in your gold box. You have a chunk of him in there?”
“Yes and no. All of him is in there, but not quite the way you’re thinking. There’s a chunk of a person under this stone, though. We call that a relic. Sometimes altars like this are built over whole tombs.”
“Carrot Top is right. Most barbaric.”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“You have some obsession with death, then?”
“Of a sort.”
“I’ve surmised that the events you narrated are not recent, yet you identified yourself as responsible for them. The ceremony Minuette and I attended, is it a sort of ritual participation in murder?”
“Yes.”
“And we witnessed the way this altar is used?”
“The only way it’s used, yes.”
“I see.” He smiled faintly, turned away from me, and stepped back down into the nave. “This little club is disgusting but harmless. I see no reason not to assist them if they want the assistance.”
“How do you suppose, Doctor?” Minuette asked as he stepped past her. “Before, I would have agreed, but now it sounds pernicious.”
He inclined his head back toward me and replied, “You and I were here. We saw what they did. They brought out crackers and preserved grape juice and called it a body and blood. This poor fellow got himself murdered, and they’ve somehow or other identified that event with a primitive blood ritual. Who knows? If eating wafers can slake their bloodlust, perhaps this little game they play even has a sort of pacifistic effect on them. It may be vulgar and savage, but it’s harmless.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “I’ll be your—what was the name?—Joseph. The others can decide for themselves.”
Derpy, now clutching Dinky in her hooves, sniffled and began to cry. “Wasn’t there anypony to help him?” she asked.
I bent down, picked up the altar cloth, and laid it back over the mensa. “They all ran away.”
“But—”
“His mother stayed, though. That’s who I’d like you to play, if you’re willing.”
With tears making dark branches down her face, Derpy, still sobbing, pulled Dinky off the ground and pressed a cheek to hers. “I’m gonna keep you safe, sugar muffin! I promise!”
“Aw, Mom!” Dinky cried. She squirmed in Derpy’s forelimbs, but didn’t look as if she were struggling very hard.
“Let’s go back,” said Time Turner. “If you’re finished, I think we could use a little fresh air.”
I genuflected toward the tabernacle, walked through the cluster of ponies, and headed for the vestibule. The sound of hooves echoing through the room told me the others were close behind.