Discworld is a geological pizza, flying through space on four giant elephants atop a massive star turtle. Magic and sex survive on the planet. A wizard, Drum Billet, comes through a storm to a tiny village, Bad Ass, and asks about the blacksmith's eighth son, who is then being born. Smith recalls that the eighth son of an eighth son can be a wizard and that only dying wizards can pass this legacy to their successor. Billet lets the newborn hold his staff, gasps, seeing that the son is a girl, and dies. Death hurries Billet away. The midwife, Granny Weatherwax, suggests that they burn the staff because female wizards are just not right. The staff, however, resists being chopped up, so they let it be and bury the wizard in the orchard. At dawn, the workshop is cleaner than ever and Smith watches the staff and tries to think. (read more)