sparhawk was coming home at last after a decade of being someone else with a different name in a country where it almost never rained , where the sun was a hammer pounding down on a bleached white anvil of sand and rock and hard-baked clay , where the walls of the buildings were thick and white to ward off the blows of the sun , and where graceful women went to the wells in the silvery light of early morning with large clay vessels balanced on their shoulders and black veils across their faces .