The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel, #4)

by Josiah Bancroft

A lord once told me that wealth is squandered upon the poor, much as rain is wasted upon puddles. But who wants the rain to fall all in one place? Is that not what cleaves the levee, what drowns the valley, what empties the boneyards only to fill them again? More puddles, I say. Fewer floods.

“It’s quite a steal, when you think about it. I would’ve died a hundred times for my kids. Just the once seems a bargain.”

But the human race came into the world with all the physical prowess of a custard and all the independence of a pimple.