“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
Williams didn’t turn around. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
He exhaled cigar smoke. “It’s not like him to be so …”
“Morose?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s it. You know, he’s been at that pond almost since we got here … just drinking and staring … completely
oblivious. Remember how I told you that neither of us could recall our previous
lives? Well, maybe he’s recalling …” He paused, struggling to find the right
words. “A different state of being. A different incarnation. I think he was a man once. A man who lived for a very long time.”
“A lonely man, then …”
“Yes. Sort of a last man standing. And I think
when we met … he rediscovered something he’d been missing for a long time.”
“Friendship. Someone to talk to,” she said.
“More than that. A reason to live. I—I’ve felt it myself. All those weeks, months, spent walking alone. I told you about
Tanelorn. Well that was what we called our reason to live … our reason for putting one foot in front of the other. Because without that …”
“‘Gazelle Theory,’” she said.
“What?”
She laughed a little. “Something my husband used
to say. It means, ‘move or die.’”
He laughed a little
himself. “That’s good. ‘Move or die.’ Whether it’s a physical death or an
emotional one.” He stared at Ank in the gloaming before another hand touched
him, this time Luna. “Is Ank all right?”
