To Moist’s surprise, the King said, ‘However much we disdain the word “politics”, one of its most useful aspects is the stopping of bloodshed. Oh yes, bloodshed there will be. But the generations stream away and people change and things thought of as totally impossible suddenly turn out to be everyday. Nay, essential. Just like the railway is becoming, see. Apropos of that, Mister Lipwig, how is the railway progressing? How are your loggysticks going?’

‘Copacetic, sire. That’s an engineer term meaning all satisfactory.’

The King gave Moist a look. It wasn’t by the standard of looks a nasty one, but it was after all a King’s look, and the gaze of the King was subtly quizzical and testing.

‘We shall see, boyo, we shall see.’

And after breakfast, there was nothing for it but to watch the mountain scenery flow past as if on some endless winding belt: trees, rocks, more trees, bigger rocks, trees again, what was possibly a clearing where lumbermen were working, brief darkness as they reached a rock big enough to require a tunnel, and so on, and yet, Moist thought, behind all those trees and all those rocks and crags, there are homesteads and small villages that we don’t know about and so one day we will have to have a stop here … here … and here. And then one day, some kid from the settlement high up in that last lot of rocks will catch the train and end up in Ankh-Morpork, full of hope, and why not? Station by station we are changing the world. And he allowed himself a little glow of pride.

Apart from the Falls,^[70] the only place that was of any significance in Zemphis was Downsized Abbey. It was a ruin now, the monks long gone; these days it was more of a souk, a medina, a heaving bazaar which reminded Moist of the Shades of Ankh-Morpork on their holidays. Nothing was still. Silence was a rare blessing. And everyone was a trader and it seemed that sooner or later everything and everyone could be bought and sold. And, if necessary, disappeared.

Of the trading routes in Zemphis, the Aglet Road stood out, as caravans of camels arrived on their way to bring the people of the Plains the tiny little things on the ends of their shoelaces without which civilized life would be unbearable and quite dangerous. There were spices from Klatch^[71], materials from the Counterweight Continent which had arrived by slow barge, other mysterious delicacies, and unfortunately many ways to become very happy in a short space of time and stone dead shortly afterwards.

Alongside the legitimate goods traded at the front of the stalls, without doubt there was some contraband, as many traders luxuriated in the semi-lawless landscape. Cages of undomesticated imps were available in the back rooms of some more unscrupulous shops, and after dark the occasional camel slipped in or out of the town carrying barrels of crude treacle.

And even though most sensible people wishing to hang on to their personal possessions, or indeed their lives, would follow the advice of those who had been there and give it a wide berth, some possibly foolhardy tourists did come to Zemphis on their way to see the Paps of Scilla, a jagged mountain range which allowed the determined mountaineer an absolute smorgasbord of ways to be found upside down above a crevasse and hanging by one leg over white water that acted like the mother of all grinders. There were eight peaks in all, sharp and unforgiving, and if there were such a thing as the good ambushing guide it would be right up there with the winners.