Chapter 16
ON THE DAY of his trip, Javes got up before sunrise.
He carried all his packs into the back yard and set them next to the camel’s pen while the camel ate. Then he put the saddle on the camel, filled up all the water skins and tied them and his packs to the saddle. He checked that he had everything; then he climbed into the saddle. The camel rose with a groan.
The sun was just coming over the horizon as he left town. The camel cast a long shadow over the stubbled hillside. The light was still soft, the sky above pink and the landscape orange. It was pretty, in its own strange way.
For the first half of the morning, he headed west, until he picked up the path to the area that was marked on the map as a place where people from the city sometimes came to watch the stars. This wa
