"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?"