He could see nothing but it: a white coalescing fireball. Sudden sunlight pierced this ball, transforming it into a spray of color, turning the frosty sand to shaved magnesium, the ice flowers to incandescent jewels. The wind pushed at his side and rent the fog; gaps in it appeared, and the land gaped off into the distance, making him reel. So big! So big— everything was so big— he went to one knee on the sand, put his hands on his other leg to keep his balance. The rocks and ice flowers around his boots glowed as if under a microscope. The rocks were dotted with round scales of black and green lichen.

Out on the horizon was a low flat-topped hill. A crater. There in the gravel was a rover track, nearly filled with frost, as if it had been there a million years. Pattern pulsing in the chaos of light and rock, green lichen pushing into the white....

Everyone was talking at once. The other children were beginning to race around giddily, shrieking with delight as the fog opened up and gave them a glimpse of the dark pink sky Coyote was laughing hard. “They’re like winter calves let out of the barn in spring, look at them tripping, oh you poor dear things, ah ha ha, Roko this no way to make them live,” cackling as he lifted kids off the sand and set them on their feet again.

Nirgal stood, bounced experimentally. He felt he might float away, he was glad the boots were so heavy. There was a long mound, shoulder high, snaking away from the ice cliff. Jackie was walking its crest and he ran to join her, staggering at the incline, at the jumbled rock on the ground. He got onto the ridge and got into his running rhythm, and it felt as if he were flying, as if he could run forever.

He stood by her side. They looked back at the ice cliff, and shouted with a fearful joy; it rose up forever into the fog. A shaft of morning light poured over them like molten water. They turned away, unable to face it. Blinking away floods of tears, Nirgal saw his shadow cast against the fog scraping over the rocks below them. The shadow was surrounded by a bright circular band of rainbow light. He shouted loudly and Coyote raced up to them, his voice in Nirgal’s ear crying, “What’s wrong! What is it?”

He stopped when he saw the shadow. “Hey, it’s a glory! That’s called a glory. It’s like the Spectre of the Brocken. Wave your arms up and down! Look at the colors! Christ almighty, aren’t you the lucky ones.”

On an impulse Nirgal moved to Jackie’s side, and their glories merged, becoming a single nimbus of glowing rainbow colors, surrounding their blue double shadow. Jackie laughed with delight and went off to try it with Peter.

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