Pyxeas’ notes had been soiled and scattered, but were reasonably intact. Avatak saved the scroll on which he had been keeping his journal of the journey, and Pyxeas insisted he make an entry every day. Avatak did abandon his heavy hourglass. The oracle was smashed, but Pyxeas was set on keeping what was left of its case, despite its bulk. Uzzia plucked out a few gears from the oracle’s abandoned carcass, saying she might make a bracelet of them for a favourite niece in New Hattusa.

So they continued.

Coming down from the roof of the world didn’t mean the journey got any easier. Now they came to a stretch of terrain that Uzzia called ‘the Desert of No Return’. ‘Except,’ she said, ‘it’s not a true desert, and it must have been given that name by somebody or other who has returned. Make of that what you will.’ Desert or not, it was harsh, bleak country, where the water was sparse, brackish. It was a comfort to Avatak that Uzzia had come this way before, but everything seemed to be changing as the world entered Pyxeas’ longwinter; many of the springs Uzzia looked out for had dried up.

Still, they passed through some spectacular landscapes. There was a dry valley that cut through layers of rock, crimson and black, heaped up like a stack of paper pages. Pyxeas speculated about the process that must have laid down these layers in the earth, and then cut through them like a knife. But his mind, supported by an exhausted, starved, dried-out, failed body, was a feeble flicker these days. Avatak thought this landscape of dead rock was chilling; he longed for life.

Uzzia, more practical, said the valley was a good place to shelter. They laid up for two days in the mouth of a dusty cave, and Uzzia and Avatak set traps for the rabbits and strange-looking rodents that chewed on the dry grass.

They emerged from the desert at a small town by an oasis. Remote as it was, exotic as the people looked, it was a place used to travellers, and it welcomed them briskly and without any fuss. Here they were able to exchange some of their catch for beds for a couple of nights, water, a chance to rinse out their clothing.

A man who claimed a special understanding of horses looked over their mule, for a price. ‘He’s in good condition – you’ll get a few months out of him yet before he’s ready for the butcher’s hook and the glue man’s pot. But he has a problem with his left front hoof . . .’ It was a jammed stone, a thorn. The mule must have been in constant pain for days. Avatak had never known. While they stayed in the town Avatak made sure he visited the mule in its stable, morning and night.