Legacy
A short story
By Don Hayward
Copyright 2015 Don Hayward
Licence Notes
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Preface
Legacy is based on a scenario in my major novel, After the Last Day. If you enjoy this story you may want to read the novel which is available both as an e-book and paperback. Links to purchase the novel can be found at the end of the story. In the novel, some years after a global economic disaster, the struggling community in southern Ontario was faced with the imminent failure of all safety systems at the nuclear generating stations. A safe disposal of the nuclear material had to be found, and the community chose the “McNeil Mine” near Sudbury Ontario as the place to bury the danger. Legacy is the story of the people in charge of the site one thousand years after the nuclear waste was sealed inside the mine.
***
The sun beat down on my bare head, baking me as I squatted on my hilltop perch, my safe place when scared, confused or bullied. Heat rose from the ancient basalt that was stripped bare by glaciers and weathered to grey over the centuries. Stubborn bits of dried, grey-green moss clung to the fractured places that held some moisture. Sphagnum and blueberries persisted in damper rocky swales that faced north, away from the killing sun. Below the south-facing, steep slopes and the fractured, rust stained drops and ledges of the hard shield rock, the place of the Keepers was spread out, suffering in the sun. The space benefited little from the cooling, hilltop breeze. The wind slapped wisps of straight dark hair against my cheeks. My eyes watered in the dry gusts, blurring my view of the pond. An oversized puddle was surrounded by dying vegetation. The putrid yellow-brown pool of sludge was fed by a strangely clear, odourless trickle, emanating from broken rock that blocked the old tunnel entrance, unseen below my perch. The horror lying behind the jumbled rock barrier had haunted the village its thousand year existence, living in its myths and fables.
It was my day of acceptance, my time of being honoured, being taken into the Keeper Clan. I was born into the Forest Clan, the hunters and warriors charged with killing game and guarding our territory. I had expected to be a hunter and a warrior too, although I had no idea what a warrior did. No enemy had threatened us in many generations. Being a hunter was challenge enough with the scarcity of game due to the dryness, and the fires that often scorched the earth and drove off the animals. It was a great fire in my grandfather’s time that swept away our enemies to the south and made the role of warrior simply symbolic. We were spared the fire’s wrath, although many times smaller blazes had the Clans ready to flee into a lake.
The four Clans of nearby Village McNeil were gathering below. Along with the Forest Clan, the Keeper Clan guarded the mine and its members were the metal workers and carpenters. The Weaver Clan grew flax, spun, wove and made clothing from linen, wool and hide. The Grower Clan raised vegetables and grain and herded sheep and goats. Most skills were shared amongst all of the villagers. Only the Keepers protected the old mine.
It was time to face my fears. I rose and clambered down the steep, familiar trail. As a child I had played on these hills often, learning the craft of the Forester. But now, having been honoured by the Keepers, I would soon walk this part of our territory as a man. My twelve year old body was awakening, changing to that of an adult. No one would tell me why I was chosen. Later, I would understand that it was because my Mother had insisted that I learn the old symbols and groupings that were written Glish. I was the only one in a generation who seemed to understand the words, although at the time I was mainly pretending. I had memorized the twenty-six symbols, but was inventing the sounds they meant. The groupings were even less real in my understanding. Still, I came to the notice of The Maurice and was to be brought into their clan. No Keepers in many generations could read the texts that rested in their library. Now, with the unsettling change to the water flowing from the rock, they were desperate to know. They were also embarrassed that they had, over countless generations, allowed their great clan to have degenerated into illiterate artisans who no longer understood their task of keeping the mine safe. That responsibility had been given to them by the great First Maurice, the creator of McNeil. All they knew was they were to guard the House of Knowledge and the mossy, brush covered boulders and broken rock scree plugging the old mine entrance. They were pledged to die to keep intruders out. I would soon make the same pledge. Why they did this was not understood, even though everyone in Village McNeil knew that it was a place to be feared.
I walked bravely and proudly towards the gathered clans. I was scared, unsure, wanting to flee into the protection of the forest, but I knew that a twelve year old hunter and warrior must be brave. Brave I would be. It had not occurred to me that by being chosen, I was already viewed with respect by most of the people. The envy and resentment in others would follow soon enough.
I stopped in front of The Maurice. He was the Eighty-Fourth Maurice, and he was old. He had lived five decades. The wrinkled face, unkempt white beard and a profound arthritic limp confirmed his age. In these generations, few lived much past forty summers, and few wished to have a long life. The Maurice would have been honoured for his age alone, but he was known to be wise and honest. He had sat in many judgements and always seemed to find healing in disputes.
My new mentor and adopted father, (‘Father’ being the honorific of each clan leader), placed a plain, tan linen shirt over my boyish bare shoulders and guided my arms into the sleeves. The fit was loose. We were expected to grow into new garments to prolong their usefulness. No exception would be made for a boy changing to a man, even if I was the chosen. A fine, wide brimmed hat of deer skin embellished with dyed quill was placed on my head. I had never worn a head cover except for the fur skin in winter, but this uncomfortable headpiece was part of the adornment of the Keeper. Many generations before, still full of the old understanding, the Keepers adopted the wide brimmed style as protection from the damaging rays of the sun. Only later, as knowledge faded to myth, the hat was given the symbolic meaning of authority.
As The Maurice’s work hardened hands swept my unruly long hair back under the brim, drums and gitters began an uplifting beat. There was no memory of the traditional ceremony for an adoption. The Keepers had not adopted anyone in living memory. The Eighty-Fourth Maurice invented the whole ritual. Once, it had been common for the Keepers to select the best boys and girls from the other clans for adoption, to learn the skills of metal working, arithmetic, reading and writing. In those times there was an elaborate ceremony with days of feasting and dancing. If the Keepers were able to read the record they would have known, as I later discovered, that the last adoption was under the Fifty-Seventh Maurice. Once I had learned the secret to reading Glish, I could find no written record after the Sixty-First Maurice. My own record ends that silence, but perhaps there is no one left to read it.
In spite of the lack of tradition, my induction was an impressive mixture of music, speeches and feasting. Though times were hard, we did not want for food and held many celebrations to break the tedium of daily existence. When the rains were plentiful and the forest kind, we would have plenty of game to hunt and the crops and herds would flourish. These times left us with much leisure and gave rise to the best memories. In harder times of drought or cold, celebrations were shorter and lacked the same enthusiasm, but they still gave us hope and rest.
“Who gives this boy to become a man with the Keepers?” Maurice searched the crowd.
“We do.??
? Mother and Father stepped forward on cue and each placed a hand onto my shoulder. “We dedicate him to your service and the service of Village McNeil.”
“Who sanctions this decision? Who will support, honour and respect him as he works to keep the danger at bay?”
“We do!” the clans all shouted in unison. I trembled.
“So be it.” The eighty-fourth Maurice raised his arms and turned me to the crowd with my parents smiling beside me, “Meet Bern the Keeper. He is your servant.”
Shouting and stomping filled the space, echoing back from the cliff above the mine entrance, above the place of danger. It echoed to the trees and back. In my memory of it, the roar went on forever. It became as if the cliff and the mine were growling directly at me, threatening and evil. I remember shuddering and feeling the same as the time that I first encountered a bear when hunting with my father. The sound ceased; the feeling passed; The Maurice took me to the stone hut nestled against the cliff, the House of Knowledge where the secrets of the