NAUSICAA AND THE DOROK PRIEST

by Raymund Perez

The small flyer zoomed high above the vast Forest of Corruption. At the 
controls was the Prince of Pejitei, Asbel. His passenger was none other 
than the blue-clad one herself, Nausicaa, daughter of Jhil of the 
Valley of the Wind. 


It had been two years since the end of the terrible Dorok-Torumekian 
war and the devastating daikaisho. Nausicaa was still very busy putting 
the deep enmity between various tribes to rest, knowing she was trying 
to push a boulder straight up a cliff, but still doing her best anyway. 


In the rear cockpit, Asbel watched the vast forest of fungi sliding 
beneath them. "Hard to believe it's been just over a year since the 
daikaisho," he said into his microphone. "Look how far the forest has 
spread." 


"Yes, but at least it is at peace now," came the voice over his headset. 


"Which is more than can be said for what's left of humanity," added 
Asbel. 


The reason for their long journey was a letter from the Queen Regent of 
Torumekia, Kushana. In it she had noted a rumor that some tribes were 
seeking to expand their meager lands along the coast by raising the sea 
floor. How they were going to do it, she didn't know, as the technology 
to do so would have been destroyed along with the Crypt of Shuwa. She 
had asked for no help, not even advice; but Nausicaa knew her enough to 
look into it. 


Ordinarily she would have traveled alone; but the Prince insisted on 
coming along, even though he hated Kushana with a passion. The Queen 
Regent had, at the start of the war, been the cause of the destruction 
of his city-state of Pejitei and had kidnapped--and caused the death 
of--his younger sister. He and a few others were all that were left 
with Pejitan blood still in their veins. Sometimes he still felt like 
going to Torumekia and impaling her on a spear, leaving her stuck on it 
like a flag on a pole in the middle of the ruins of his beloved city. 
Yet he remembered the way Lord Yupa, Nausicaa's mentor, had sacrificed 
himself to save her from vengeful Dorok troops. So when Nausicaa had 
asked him if he was sure of what he was doing, he merely nodded and she 
understood. 


To say that he was only doing his duty would have been a falsehood, 
however. For he also loved the Princess. It was true that everyone who 
met her grew to love her; but he loved her more than most. But he also 
knew a heavy burden lay on her shoulders, young and frail though they 
were, and she would not--could not--answer his own. For she was 
consumed by a cause greater than herself, greater than the safety of 
the people of the Valley. So he kept his silence and helped her any way 
he could. 


Old Mito would have flown the Princess on this trip; but he was too 
sick, laid up in the castle where he had once continuously fretted and 
worried about her, as her guardian. "You're going to have to watch over 
her now," said he before they left, clasping Asbel's hand in one grown 
as hard as stone. 


The craft they were flying in was new, a gift from the people of the 
Valley to their new ruler. They had built it, slowly and with loving 
care, over the course of the years, using what metal and scraps of Ohmu 
shell they could find. It looked a bit like the old Gunship but was 
unarmed, and it could fly faster and higher than any other aircraft. 
Nausicaa had been overcome with emotion when the elders had presented 
it to her. They knew she was not going to stay in the valley long: in 
fact, once she had gone, she would probably never return. So they gave 
her something to help her in her journeys and to remind her of home. As 
a gifted pilot, she had taken it up on its first flight and announced 
that she was delighted with it. "It flies faster than the wind," she 
had said on her return. She gave it the name "Arrow," for its speed. 


Too soon, she had taken her leave of the Valley, and all the people who 
could come gathered around the castle to see her go. They wept as their 
beloved Child of the Wind flew away on wings they themselves had built. 


"Will we see her again?" asked Tepa, a young girl gifted in flying, 
destined to be the Valley's new Child of the Wind, as they watched the 
Princess' craft disappear into the distant blue sky. 


"I fear not," said old Granny, the soothsayer who had once served Jhil 
and now lived her remaining years giving advice to the council of 
elders ruling the Valley in Nausicaa's place. 


They had traveled steadily towards Torumekia since they left the Valley, 
flying as low and slow as conditions permitted, since Nausicaa was keen 
on observing the forest and how it was progressing. They had stopped in 
various towns along the way, and more than once the presence of the 
blue-clad one had stopped brewing conflicts. She no longer wore the 
blood-stained clothes that had been mentioned in the prophecies and had 
earned her the sobriquet; instead she wore blue-dyed clothes that were 
a gift to her from the Mani tribe of the Doroks. Her old clothes she 
had had buried beside Lord Yupa. 


It was their second day out from the last town they visited, a 
miserable ceramic-mining place with fewer than five hundred souls. The 
forest stretched out beneath them, seemingly endless. 


It was just past mid-day when Asbel heard Nausicaa exclaim, "Look down 
below!" 


Asbel banked the plane to the left so he could see better. There was a 
dark spot moving in a clearing on the ground. "That looks like a man," 
he said. 


Suddenly something dark burst in from the edge of the clearing like a 
flood. "A swarm of pillbugs!" 


"Stern cockpit. Let's go help him." 


"Roger." 


  'Just like Nausicaa,' Asbel thought as he put Arrow into a screaming 
dive, then reversed course. 'She doesn't even know who it is, but still 
goes to help.' He wagged the wings to look at the ground. As it was 
turning out, Arrow's performance suited him like a glove; and so did 
the temperament of his passenger, who never complained when he did 
these maneuvers, unlike others he had flown with. Perhaps it was 
because when it came to flying she was just as daring--Mito would say 
reckless--as he was. 


Approaching the clearing from where the swarm of pillbugs had emerged, 
Asbel slowed down and dropped a hundred feet, barely clearing the tall 
stalks of fungi that swished by past them. 


"They're gaining on him," Nausicaa said. "They're too mad to talk to. 
I'm going to use the insect bombs and flares." 


"Roger." 


A torrent of small, marble-shaped things dropped from holes in the 
underside of the plane, to land amidst the seething mass of insects. 
There was a confusion of loud explosions and flashes of blinding light. 
Designed to deter the residents of the Sea of Corruption without 
killing them, the bombs and flares began scattering the swarm, which 
retreated back into the safety of the forest. For good measure Asbel 
dropped a pair of insect shells, which frightened the pillbugs with an 
eerie, deafening siren wail. 


"It looks like they're turning back," said Nausicaa. "Let's land, 
quickly!" 


Asbel extended the bird-like undercarriage and brought the craft down. 
He had judged the landing perfectly, rolling to a stop beside the 
figure, who was dressed in a black robes and wore a bug-like breathing 
mask. 


Nausicaa opened her canopy and stood up. "Get in!" she urged the figure. 


The figure took a step forward and then stopped, as if in shock. "The 
blue-clad one!" she heard a male voice exclaim. The figure dropped to 
its knees. 


"Please, get up," said Nausicaa, jumping down from the cockpit. "The 
insects will be back before long!" She pulled him up and hustled him 
into the cockpit. She told him to sit down on her seat, and then she 
sat on his lap. 


"Please!" said the man. "Be careful where you sit, for heaven's sake!" 


Nausicaa smiled at him. "Just bear with me for a while," she said. 
Plugging her headset cord in, she said to Asbel, "Stern cockpit, taking 
off." 


"Okay, hold on." Asbel drove Arrow to the edge of the clearing and 
turned her around, apologizing for the bumpiness. 


"How are you doing there?" he asked. 


"Bit cramped, but fine. I'm leaving the canopy open." 


"Roger. Here we go!" He shoved the throttles full forward. 


After a very short run the plane leapt off the ground. As they climbed, 
Asbel could see a flood of insects emerging from the forest into the 
clearing. 


"Not a moment too soon," he said to no one in particular. 


In the front cockpit, the man tapped Nausicaa on the shoulder. "Thank 
you for rescuing me," he shouted, straining to be heard over the noise 
of the engine and the wind. 


Nausicaa turned around to look at him. "It was nothing. Where can we 
drop you off?" 


The man pointed in the direction from which they had come. "See that 
low hill over there?" 


She nodded. 


"Just beyond that would be fine." 


Nausicaa told Asbel where to go. She immediately heard the engines' 
whine die down, as their destination was very near and Asbel was 
already within gliding distance. 


She risked pulling her mask off. "What were you doing all alone in the 
middle of the forest?" 


The man, seeing as how the blue-clad one had pulled off her mask, 
removed his own. 


"You're a Dorok priest!" said Nausicaa, seeing the marks on his face. 


He nodded. "Yes, I am. And I have seen you before, so I don't need to 
ask who you are." He was old, around sixty. "My name is Koru, of 
Sapata." 


"What were you doing down there?" 


"I was looking for a friend when I stumbled into a nest of bugs. I've 
been leading them on a merry chase for an hour now when you came along. 
I'm glad you did. This old body of mine wouldn't have lasted much 
longer." 


"Bow cockpit," came Asbel's voice over the intercom. "We're landing." 


A few minutes later, Arrow came to a stop beside what appeared to be a 
ruined building some distance from the forest's edge. After Asbel had 
shut the engines off, Nausicaa leapt down from the cockpit, followed by 
the old man. 


The old man bowed repeatedly, thanking her again and again. "I'm no 
savior," she told him. "I'm just an ordinary human being like you." 


"Will you not stop and rest for a while?" he asked, wanting to show his 
gratitude. 


Nausicaa turned to Asbel, who had come up beside her and was removing 
his mask. "I wouldn't mind," he said. She nodded. 


The old man led them across the sandy ground to the entrance of the 
ruined building. It looked very old, somehow too old to have been 
touched by the war, crumbling and in disrepair though it was. 


"It looks like a shrine of some sort," remarked Asbel. 


"It is," the old man confirmed. "According to my research, this is a 
leftover from the world before the Seven Days of Fire." 


"It is? Why did you choose to live here?" asked Nausicaa, running her 
hand over the old stone. 


"Yeah," said Asbel. "It's a long way from Sapata to here, old man." 


The old man was silent for a while as he led them further into the 
gloomy interior. "You had something to do with it," he replied at last, 
looking at Nausicaa. 


"What do you mean?" Koru didn't answer. 


There was a room off the building's long main hall, into which he led 
them. He opened a window to light the place and asked them to sit down. 
"I will be back with some food," he said. 


It was already dark when, after sharing a frugal meal, Nausicaa asked 
the priest, "You said you saw me before. Might I ask where?" 


Koru looked at her and closed his eyes for a long second, as if 
reliving old memories. "I was one of those," he replied, voice unsteady, 
"chained to the rocks when you rescued Charuka." 


"Oh, Father," gasped Nausicaa, remembering the horrible sight. The 
priests of the Dorok had been been chained to rock pillars and were 
being stoned to death by a mob when she had arrived and, with the help 
of Luwa Chikuku Kulubalkuwa, persuaded them to stop. "I'm glad you're 
alright." 


"I was one of Charuka's aides," the old man continued. "After the war, 
he put me in charge of one group of settlers. We tried to make a new 
life along the coast, but one by one the settlers grew sick and died, 
until less than half were left. I returned with them to the capital and, 
in shame for my failure, sought to end my life in the forest. Long did 
I travel, but it seemed even Death avoided me, until I found this place 
and decided to stay here, far away from the rest of mankind." 


Nausicaa placed a hand on the priest's own, in sympathy. "We've all 
lost much in these wars." 


"And we will lose more still," said the priest. Asbel could see the 
glint of anger in his eyes, but Koru quickly turned away. He glanced at 
Nausicaa and knew she had caught it too. But there was nothing but 
compassion in her eyes. 


"Father?" said Nausicaa in a gentle voice. "You have something to say?" 


Koru shook his head. "Forgive me, Princess Nausicaa. But seeing you has 
reopened old wounds I have tried so hard to heal." 


"Seven hundred fifty two died under my care," the priest said in a 
monotone. "Day after day I had to administer last rites to people whom 
I couldn't help. Day after day parents who were sick themselves carried 
their dying children into the church hoping I could cure them. Day 
after day I visited the houses of those too ill to come to the shrine, 
trying everything I knew to heal them. And still people kept on dying. 
The time came when I wished I myself would get sick and die along with 
them..." The priest covered his eyes with his hands and wept. 


Nausicaa embraced the old man. Asbel looked on in pity. What was there 
to say to one who had suffered that much? 


"Your pardon. Pardon me," repeated the old man, wiping his tears away. 
"Fortune did not bring you here to listen to an old man's tale of woe, 
blue-clad one. But if there were anything I would say," he continued, 
"it would be this: I wish you hadn't destroyed the Crypt of Shuwa." 


"Why not, Father?" asked Nausicaa, surprised. 


"The knowledge could have helped save my people," answered Koru, his 
voice rising. "There most certainly would have been a cure to the 
mysterious illness which plagued us. And I am not only thinking about 
what happened to me, Princess Nausicaa. There is still much sickness in 
the world. People are still dying daily of maladies which our medicine 
has no cure for. Wouldn't have that been worth keeping the Crypt 
intact?" 


"Had she done that," replied Asbel hotly, "we would still be under the 
thumb of the Master of the Crypt!" 


"Better to be alive and have a second chance at freedom than dead and 
have no chance at all!" rejoined Koru. "By destroying the crypt you 
have doomed countless others to a slow and lingering death!" 


"Why you ungrateful..." 


"Stop it! Stop it, both of you!" 


They both turned to look at Nausicaa. She wore a grief-stricken 
expression on her face. There were no tears, for she who had lost so 
much was not going to weep so readily; but one knew, just by looking at 
her, that if she had cried out her sorrow, her tears would have been 
more than enough to drown the remaining human lands. 


"I'm sorry, Father," she said, staring at the little lantern that lit 
the room in its feeble light, her voice very small. She could see in 
her mind's eye the blood on her feet, and the voice of the Nothingness 
roaring 'Among the dead there are those you killed yourself!' "I could 
not save us all... I'm just as guilty of killing people as the soldiers 
behind their guns...maybe even more so..." 


Aghast at what he had said and done, Koru prostrated himself in front 
of her. "Please forgive me! Forgive the harsh words of a bitter old 
man! I am eternally in your debt, yet I do this to you..." Overcome 
with shame, he jumped up and ran out into the darkness. 


"Hey! Come back!" yelled Asbel, running after the old man as far as the 
door. He stared into the blackness. "Come back!" his voice echoed. 


"Asbel." He turned around. 


Nausicaa looked at him sadly and shook her head. "He's right, you know. 
I made my decision, but... what he says is true. I gave life to some 
people by taking it away from others." 


He went to her and cradled her head against his chest. "It's a cruel 
world we live in, Asbel." He felt a splash on his arm, then another, 
and another. He held her against him as the tears started to flow in 
earnest. 


                           ------oOo------ 


Late the next morning Asbel had woken to find Nausicaa deep in 
conversation with Koru. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and 
arose from the thick pile of straw which he had lain in after putting 
Nausicaa on her own pallet. She had cried herself to sleep. 


"...humbly ask for your forgiveness," he heard the Dorok priest saying. 
"I had forgotten how hard your road must be for you, the chosen one, 
the savior of the world." 


He watched as she shook her head. "Why should I forgive you," she said, 
"when all you've done is speak the truth? But what is done is done. We 
all have to live with the consequences of our decisions." She turned to 
Asbel and said, "Good morning." 


"Good morning," he answered, a question in his voice. She nodded, 
indicated everything was well, if not quite happy. 


As he stumbled out of the room, still groggy, a pitcher of water in his 
hand, looking for a place where he could do his morning ablutions, 
Nausicaa turned to Koru. "You can't hide forever in this place," she 
said. "Go back home, and help others start a new life." 


"I am more inclined to consider it, Highness, now that I have met you. 
I am not hiding," said Koru, "but I do need this place to do what I 
have set out to do." 


"What's that?" she asked, remembering the previous night's conversation. 
"Not to kill yourself?" 


Koru shook his bald head. "Actually, I gave up on that a long time 
ago," he said. "But since I have been a priest all my life, I thought I 
could do something else for a change. Something no one else would 
ordinarily do." 


"That is--? " 


"Let us wait for your friend, then I will show you." 


After Asbel had finished his breakfast, Koru led them both to the end 
of the main hall. There, propped against the wall, obviously part of 
the ruined building itself, was something that looked vaguely like an 
altar. 


"Here I sit and pray," said the priest. "I stay here the whole day long, 
saying prayers for all those who have fallen in that wretched war--and 
all those yet to fall. Other people usually are too busy to do this 
task." He looked at Nausicaa. "This is why I have chosen to live here, 
and this is what I have set out to do. In some small way, I hope it 
lightens the burden on your shoulders, your Highness." 


"It surely must," said Asbel, gazing up at the high stone structure. 
Pejitans were almost as religious as the Doroks themselves. 


Privately, Nausicaa thought it would be a more fitting repentance for 
Koru to return home to help other people in need, but she held her 
peace. She thanked the old man. "We have to leave," she said. "It's 
still a long day's flight to Torumekia." 


"Before you leave," said Koru, "I recall hearing from one of the 
Wormhandlers who passed through our village that you had lost your fox- 
squirrel." 


Teto. She nodded. "That's right." 


"Well, then," said the priest, whistling loudly. There was an answering 
shriek which echoed throughout the hall. Something small and furry came 
trotting out of the darkness. 


"When I told you yesterday I was out in the middle of the forest 
looking for a friend, I was telling you the truth. This is her." 


"A fox-squirrel?" said Asbel in amazement. 


The small creature with the long, tufted ears and round reddish eyes 
jumped onto Koru's arm. It nuzzled his cheek and let out a series of 
satisfied-sounding chitters. Unlike Teto, Nausicaa's pet, this one had 
bluish-black fur and pale yellowish stripes along its body. 


"Yes, well, we were out foraging and this one got bitten by wanderlust 
again. She decided that chasing a baby pillbug was lots of fun, and 
that's what got us into trouble in the first place." The old priest 
stretched his arm out. "I would like to give her to your Highness, if 
you'd accept. The day is coming when I will no longer be able to take 
care of her, so..." 


Nausicaa let the fox-squirrel sniff her finger, remembering when she 
had first laid eyes on Teto, whom Lord Yupa had rescued from the forest. 
"Hello there," she said softly. "What's her name?" 


"Saila." 


"Hello, Saila," said Nausicaa, as the little creature jumped onto her 
shoulder, sniffing, tickling her. "Would you like to go on a trip with 
me?" 


The fox-squirrel transferred itself to her opposite shoulder, rubbing 
against the back of her neck, and sat down. 


"I take that as a yes," said the priest. "Goodbye, Saila. I hope you'll 
behave yourself and not let Princess Nausicaa suffer wild goose chases 
the way you've let me experience them." 


"I don't carry chiko nuts anymore..." 


"Don't worry, I have some here." 


They returned to Koru's room. As the pair gathered up their gear and 
prepared to go back to their plane, he said, "Thank you for everything 
you've done for all of us, blue-clad one. I hope someday we'll meet 
again." 


"I hope so too," said Nausicaa. "Will you go back to Sapata? They need 
all the help they can get, you know." 


"As I told you, your Highness, I will think about it." 


                           ------oOo------ 


Later, Asbel was setting course for Torumekia when Nausicaa called him.   
"Asbel?" 


"Yes?" 


"Can I ask you a question?" 


"What?" 


"Do you think Koru was right, that we should have left the Crypt 
intact?" 


"No. It's better to live free like this. Had we left it standing, its 
cursed secrets would have still leaked out. The cycle of destruction 
would have run to its final, inevitable course. Maybe this time, 
without the Master's influence, the remainder of humanity will become 
wise enough to survive all of this. Excepting dear Kushana..." 


"Asbel..." 


"I was only joking." 


"Take us up." 


"Pardon?" 


"Up beyond the clouds, Asbel. I want to forget things for a while." 


"Copy." 


Up soared Arrow, into the bright blue of the sky.