A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

and hovels. Others had begged for space on the sagging roofs of creaky huts and slept fitfully or not at all. Tehol could feel countless pairs of eyes looking down upon them, tracking their passage deeper into the heart of the ghetto.
    As they walked, Tehol spoke. '... the assumption is the foundation stone of Letherii society, perhaps all societies the world over. The notion of inequity, my friends. For from inequity derives the concept of value, whether measured by money or the countless other means of gauging human worth. Simply put, there resides in all of us the unchallenged belief that the poor and the starving are in some way deserving of their fate. In other words, there will always be poor people. A truism to grant structure to the continual task of comparison, the establishment through observation of not our mutual similarities, but our essential differences.
    'I know what you're thinking, to which I have no choice but to challenge you both. Like this. Imagine walking down this street, doling out coins by the thousands. Until everyone here is in possession of vast wealth. A solution? No, you say, because among these suddenly rich folk there will be perhaps a majority who will prove wasteful, profligate and foolish, and before long they will be poor once again. Besides, if wealth were distributed in such a fashion, the coins themselves would lose all value – they would cease being useful. And without such utility, the entire social structure we love so dearly would collapse.
    'Ah, but to that I say, so what? There are other ways of measuring self-worth. To which you both heatedly reply: with no value applicable to labour, all sense of worth vanishes! And in answer to that I simply smile and shake my head. Labour and its product become the negotiable commodities. But wait, you object, then value sneaks in after all! Because a man who makes bricks cannot be equated with, say, a man who paints portraits. Material is inherently value-laden, on the basis of our need to assert comparison – but ah, was I not challenging the very assumption that one must proceed with such intricate structures of value?
    'And so you ask, what's your point, Tehol? To which I reply with a shrug. Did I say my discourse was a valuable means of using this time? I did not. No, you assumed it was. Thus proving my point!'
    'I'm sorry, master,' Bugg said, 'but what was that point again?'
    'I forget. But we've arrived. Behold, gentlemen, the poor.'
    They stood at the edge of an old market round, now a mass of squalid shelters seething with humanity. A few communal hearths smouldered. The area was ringed in rubbish – mostly dog and cat bones – which was crawling with rats. Children wandered in the dazed, lost fashion of the malnourished. Newborns lay swaddled and virtually unattended. Voices rose in arguments and somewhere on the opposite side was a fight of some sort. Mixed-bloods, Nerek, Faraed, Tarthenal, even the odd Fent. A few Letherii as well, escapees from Indebtedness.
    Bugg looked on in silence for a half-dozen heartbeats, then said, 'Master, transporting them out to the Isles won't solve anything.'
    'No?'
    'These are broken spirits.'
    'Beyond hope of recovery?'
    'Well, that depends on how paternalistic you intend to be, master. The rigours of past lifestyles are beyond these people. We're a generation or more too late. They've not old skills to fall back on, and as a community this one is intrinsically flawed. It breeds violence and neglect and little else.'
    'I know what you're saying, Bugg. You're saying you've had better nights and the timing wasn't good, not good at all. You're miserable, you've got a chill, you should be in bed.'
    'Thank you, master. I was wondering myself.'
    'Your issue of paternalism has some merit, I admit,' Tehol said, hands on hips as he studied the grubby shanty-town. 'That is to say, you have a point. In any case, doom is about to sweep through this sad place. Lether is at war, Bugg. There will be ... recruitment drives.'
    'Press-ganging,' the manservant said, nodding morosely.
    'Yes, all that malignant violence put to good use. Of course, such poor soldiers will be employed as fodder. A harsh solution to this perennial problem, admittedly, but one with long precedent.'
    'So, what have you planned, master?'
    'The challenge facing myself and the sharp minds of the Rat Catchers' Guild, was, as you have observed, how does one reshape an entire society? How does one convert this impressive example of