"You've been down from the mountains for some time, I expect," said Granny.

"Very promising seam of coal down here," mumbled the spokesdwarf, twiddling his hat.

"Bet it's a long time since you've had proper dwarf bread, then," said Granny.

The spokesdwarf's eyes misted over.

"Baked from the finest stone-ground grit, just like mother used to jump up and down on it," Granny went on.

A sort of collective sigh went up from the dwarfs.

"You just can't get it down here," said the spokesdwarf, to the ground. "It's the water, or something. It falls to bits after hardly any years at all."

"They puts flour in it," said someone behind him, sourly.

"It's worse'n that. The baker over in Genua puts dried fruit in it," said another dwarf.

"Well, now," said Granny, rubbing her hands together, "I may be able to help you here. Could be I've got some dwarf bread to spare."

"Nah. Not proper dwarf bread," said the spokesdwarf moodily. "Proper dwarf bread's got to be dropped in rivers and dried out and sat on and left and looked at every day and put away again. You just can't get it down here."

"This could be," said Granny Weatherwax, "your lucky day."

"To be frank," said Nanny Ogg, "I think the cat pissed on some of it."

The spokesdwarf looked up, his eyes aglow.

"Hot damn!"

Dear Jason et everybody,

What a life, all kinds of thing gain on, what with talkin wolves and women asleep in castles, I shall have a story or two to tell you when I gets back and no mistake. Also, dont tawk to me about farmhouses, which reminds me, please send somone to Mr Vemissage over in Slice and present Mrs Ogg's compluments and what a good hat he makes, he can say ‘As Approved by Nanny Ogg', it stops 100% of all known farmhouses, also, if you writes to people saying how good their stuff is sometimes you get free stuff, there could be a new hat in this for me so see to it.

Lilith stepped out from her room of mirrors. Shadowy images of herself trailed after her, fading.

Witches ought to be squashed when a farmhouse lands on them. Lilith knew that. All squashed, except for their boots sticking out.

Sometimes she despaired. People just didn't seem able to play their parts properly.

She wondered whether there was such a thing as the opposite of a fairy godmother. Most things had their opposite, after all. If so, she wouldn't be a bad fairy godmother, because that's just a good fairy godmother seen from a different viewpoint.

The opposite would be someone who was poison to stories and, thought Lilith, quite the most evil creature in the world.

Well, here in Genua was one story no-one could stop. It had momentum, this one. Try to stop it and it'd absorb you, make you part of its plot. She didn't have to do a thing. The story would do it for her. And she had the comfort of knowing that she couldn't lose. After all, she was the good one.

She strolled along the battlements and down the stairs to her own room, where the two sisters were waiting. They were good at waiting. They could sit for hours without blinking.

The Duc refused even to be in the same room as them.

Their heads turned as she came in.

She'd never given them voices. It wasn't necessary. It was enough that they were beautiful and could be made to understand.

"Now you must go to the house," she said. "And this is very important. Listen to me. Some people will be coming to see Ella tomorrow. You must let them do so, do you understand?"

They were watching her lips. They watched anything that moved.

"We shall need them for the story. It won't work properly unless they try to stop it. And afterwards... perhaps I will give you voices. You'll like that, won't you?"

They looked at one another, and then at her. And then at the cage in the corner of the room.

Lilith smiled, and reached in, and took out two white mice.

"The youngest witch might be just your type," she said. "I shall have to see what I can do with her. And now... open..."

The broomsticks drifted through the afternoon air.

For once, the witches weren't arguing.

The dwarfs had been a taste of home. It would have done anyone's heart good to see the way they just sat and stared at the dwarf bread, as if consuming it with their eyes, which was the best way to consume dwarf bread. Whatever it was that had driven them to seek ruby-coloured boots seemed to wear off under its down-to-earth influence. As Granny said, you could look a long way before you found anything realer than dwarf bread.

Then she'd gone off alone to talk to the head dwarf.

She wouldn't tell the others what he'd told her, and they didn't feel bold enough to ask. Now she flew a little ahead of them.

Occasionally she'd mutter something like ‘Godmothers!" or ‘Practising!"

But even Magrat, who hadn't had as much experience, could feel Genua now, as a barometer feels the air pressure. In Genua, stories came to life. In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true.

Remember some of your dreams?

Genua nestled on the delta of the Vieux river, which was the source of its wealth. And Genua was wealthy. Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government, and therefore sound economics and perfectly all right. And the swamps and lakes back in the delta provided the crawling, swimming and flying ingredients of a cuisine that would have been world famous if, as has already been indicated, people travelled very much.

Genua was rich, lazy and unthreatened, and had once spent quite a lot of time involved in that special kind of civic politics that comes naturally to some city states. For example, once it had been able to afford the largest branch of the Assassins' Guild outside Ankh-Morpork, and its members were so busy that you sometimes had to wait for months.

But the Assassins had all left years ago. Some things sicken even jackals.

The city came as a shock. From a distance, it looked like a complicated white crystal growing out of the greens and browns of the swamp.

Closer to, it resolved into, firstly, an outer ring of smaller buildings, then an inner ring of large, impressive white houses and, finally, at the very centre, a palace. It was tall and pretty and multi-turreted, like a toy castle or some kind of confectionery extravaganza. Every slim tower looked designed to hold a captive princess.

Magrat shivered. But then she thought of the wand. A godmother had responsibilities.

"Reminds me of another one of them Black Aliss stories," said Granny Weatherwax. "I remember when she locked up that girl with the long pigtails in a tower just like one of them. Rumple-stiltzel or someone."

"But she got out," said Magrat.

"Yes, it does you good to let your hair down," said Nanny.

"Huh. Rural myths," said Granny.

They drew nearer to the city walls. Then Magrat said, "There's guards on the gate. Are we going to fly over?"

Granny stared at the highest tower through narrowed eyes. "No," she said. "We'll land and walk in. So's not to worry people."

"There's a nice flat green bit just behind those trees," said Magrat.

Granny walked up and down experimentally. Her boots squeaked and gurgled in watery accusation.

"Look, I said I'm sorry," said Magrat. "It just looked so flat!"

"Water gen'rally does," said Nanny, silting on a tree stump and wringing out her dress.

"But even you couldn't tell it was water," said Magrat. "It looks so... so grassy with all that weed and stuff floating on it."

"Seems to me the land and the water round here can't decide who is which," said Nanny. She looked around at the miasmic landscape.

Trees grew out of the swamp. They had a jagged, foreign look and seemed to be rotting as they grew. Where the water was visible, it was black like ink. Occasionally a few bubbles would eructate to the surface like the ghosts of beans on bath night. And somewhere over in the distance was the river, if it was possible to be that sure in this land of thick water and ground that wobbled when you set foot on it.