Boer tapped his cane against the stone path at the foot of the mountain.
In theory,
he was far too young to need a cane.
But for some reason, he loved imitating his father, planting his cane as he walked.
Whether on muddy mountain trails or firm, level ground,
he liked the heavy sound it made when it struck the earth.
It was as if doing so lent him some of the same patriarchal authority his father possessed.
The mountain where the wonder stood was not very far from where Ned lived.
Every day, Ned saw guards hauling timber up there.
Even after the sea monster incident,
the artisans had stopped building ships on the coast,
but they had never stopped work on the wonder.
Just as people's reverence for the gods never ceased.
However, Richie had strictly forbidden the other tribespeople from climbing the mountain before construction was complete, lest they damage the magnificent wonder under construction.
Of course, their father's orders couldn't really stop Ned.
If he wanted to, he could always go up that mountain.
But Ned hadn't.
He wanted to wait for the wonder to be completely finished, too.
As though waiting for a beautiful flower to slowly bloom.
"Twenty years."
"This wonder has taken a full twenty years to build. At last, it's finished."
Looking at the towering mountain before him, Boer sighed:
"Work on this temple began before we were even born. They say Mother was the one who came up with the idea of building it."
Ned followed behind his younger brother in silence.
When Boer saw that his brother wasn't saying anything,
he took the initiative and found something to talk about.
"How have you and Yami been lately? I heard you had a son. That's a good thing. Children are the hope of the tribe. When your child is a little older and wants to learn, I can appoint an elder to teach him..."
Boer stopped halfway through his sentence.
He turned around.
He had suddenly noticed Ned laughing.
Ned couldn't hold back any longer. He turned his head and burst out laughing.
Boer was speechless.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He could only stare at his brother in confusion.
He couldn't understand what his brother was laughing about.
"My god, you're exactly like him. You sound even more like an old man than Father did back then. You haven't even officially become patriarch yet, and you're already like this?"
Ned could barely contain his laughter.
Perhaps other people wouldn't have noticed.
But to him,
his younger brother looked so ridiculous and funny,
like a naive child
trying clumsily, with all his might, to play at being an adult in that pompous, old-fashioned way.
When Boer heard that this was what his brother found so funny, he was a little taken aback.
After all, he hadn't noticed anything different about the way he spoke or acted.
But in the end, a smile appeared on his face, just like his brother's.
He could tell that his brother wasn't mocking him.
And it had been a long time since he'd seen his brother smile like this.
After they had laughed,
the brothers began reminiscing about the funny things that had happened when they were young.
"I remember when you hid in that tree hollow in the forest. Father was frantic, pacing back and forth right in front of you, and you couldn't help laughing so loudly that we found you."
"You were only six then, weren't you? You were always running off into the woods by yourself."
"Time really flies. In the blink of an eye, we've both grown up and become fathers."
Boer said with a sigh.
Ned paused, then smiled faintly.
"Yeah, that was a long time ago."
As they talked,
the distance that had grown between them over the years seemed to shrink a little.
The brothers reminisced about all sorts of things from their childhood.
However,
when Boer brought up matters concerning the tribe, Ned's bored expression returned.
Boer noticed it, too.
His brother always seemed uninterested in one thing or another.
When he realized his brother wasn't engaged, he stopped in time and changed the subject.
As they drew closer to the mountaintop,
Boer and Ned came across other tribespeople climbing up as well.
Their expressions were solemn and reverent.
Ned quickly wiped the smile from his face.
In his life,
there were only a few moments when he became serious.
People were always filled with reverence for the gods.
Ned was no exception.
But there was something different about his reverence.
Ned had clearly experienced everything the gods had bestowed upon them.
The wondrous wood that crackled with lightning, the enormous, sweet fruit, and the extraordinary, mysterious, beautiful power of the Rot Spirit Flower had all filled him with wonder and delight.
And all the things that had captivated him had come from the hands of the great gods.
"Without the gods, it would be as if there were no light, and everything would fall into darkness."
Ned had once thought this.
If they lost everything the gods had bestowed upon them,
people's lives would become dull and empty, without any joy.
He did not fear the gods.
He was simply grateful to them.
Grateful that the gods had bestowed their radiance upon the people and illuminated the darkness.
At last, Boer and Ned reached the mountaintop.
After they climbed the final stone step,
all the believers who had made it to the top could see the whole scene.
A white temple, larger than any other, stood amid the Radiance atop the cliff.
Beneath the vast sky, several enormous carved stone pillars held up the white dome, as if they were supporting the azure heavens themselves.
The midday sun shone down on the level mountaintop.
The magnificent temple stood against the light.
Backlit, it had become a vast, dark stone platform.
Its immense shadow swallowed all the light, leaving only the dazzling brilliance of the sun resting upon the platform.
The sun seemed embedded in the temple, like a jewel offered to the gods.
At the temple's peak, an eternal radiance shone, unchanged since time immemorial.
Seeing this sight, the tribespeople who had climbed the mountain for the first time cried out in wonder one after another.
"What an incredible sight."
"No wonder it took more than twenty years to build. A structure this huge is like nothing we've ever seen."
Their astonishment was just like that of Richie and Naen when they had first reached the mountaintop and looked out over the view.
Just then, the cold mountain wind howled past.
A hollow, ethereal sound drifted from the temple to their ears.
"The sound of a bone flute?"
Ned's expression shifted.
The sound was like a flute playing somewhere in the ethereal clouds.
"No, it's the wind."
Boer smiled and shook his head.
He pointed to the holes deliberately carved into the upper parts of the temple's stone pillars.
"Teacher Blair designed this structure based on how flutes and whistles work. When the wind blows through the mountain, the holes in the temple pillars make that sound. The shell wind chimes ring, too."
Amid this wondrous melody composed by the wind,
the people felt as if their hearts had been cleansed, and entered the temple of the gods with reverent steps.
The bright sunlight streamed through the dome.
It shone upon the enormous Faceless Statue at the very center.
Richie had named this temple the Temple of Eternity.
The name meant that the gods were eternal, unchanged since time immemorial.
"It really is a wonder."
Ned sighed.
Human ingenuity was truly remarkable.
But
perhaps that wasn't quite right.
A wonder so breathtaking could not be created through ingenuity alone.
Without the gods,
there could be no faith.
Even if people without faith could build such a magnificent structure,
it would lose the sacred, awe-inspiring quality that symbolized the great gods, and would no longer be a true wonder.
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