"You need to understand that if you go out on thin ice, it doesn't matter if the lake was frozen over by a cold spell, or a magic spell. If you don't know where you're stepping, so to speak, you could fall into the cold dark arms of death. It matters not what made the ice-dead is dead. My point is that you don't go out on that thin ice unless you have a very powerful need, because it very well could cost you your life."
"But I'm not touched by magic. Like Richard said, I'm like someone born without eyes who can't see color. I'm a broken link in the chain of magic.
Wouldn't that mean that I can't accidentally get into trouble with it?"
"And if someone pushes a boulder off a cliff and it crushes you, does it matter if that boulder was sent crashing over the edge by a man with a lever, or by a sorceress wielding the gift?"
Jennsen's voice took on a troubled tone. "I see what you mean. I guess that I never looked at it that way."
"I'm only trying to help you because I know how easy it is to make a mistake."
She watched Kahlan in the dark for a moment. "You know about magic.
What kind of mistake could you make?"
"All kinds."
"Like what?"
Kahlan stared off into the memories. "I once delayed for half a second in killing someone."
"But I thought you said that it was wrong to be too rash."
"Sometimes the most foolhardy thing you can do is to delay. She Was a sorceress. By the time I acted it was already too late. Because of my mistake she captured Richard and took him away. For a year, I didn't know what had happened to him. I thought I would never see him again, that I would die of heartache."
Jennsen stared in astonishment. "When did you find him again?"
"Not long ago. That's why we're down here in the Old World-she brought him here. At least I found him. I've made other mistakes, and they, too, have resulted in no end of trouble. So has Richard. Like he said, we all make mistakes. If I can, I want to spare you from making a needless mistake, at least."
Jennsen looked away. "Like believing in that man I was with yesterday-Sebastian. Because of him, my mother was murdered and I almost got you killed. I feel like such a fool."
"You didn't make that mistake out of carelessness, Jennsen. They deceived you, used you. More importantly, in the end you used your head and were willing to face the truth."
Jennsen nodded.
"What should we name the twins?" she finally asked.
Kahlan didn't think that naming the twins was a good idea, not yet anyway, but she was reluctant to say it.
"I don't know. What names were you thinking?"
Jennsen let out a heavy breath. "It was a shock to suddenly have Betty back with me, and even more of a surprise to see that she had babies of her own. I never considered that before. I haven't even had time to think about names."
"You will."
Jennsen smiled at the thought. Her smile grew, as if at the thought of something more.
"You know," she said, "I think I understand what Richard meant about thinking of his grandfather as wizardly, even though he never saw him do magic."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I can't see magic, so to speak, and Richard didn't do any tonight-at least none I know of." She laughed softly, as pleasing a laugh as Kahlan had ever heard, full of life and joy. It had a quality to it much like Richard's, the feminine balance to Richard's masculine laugh, two facets of the same delight.
"And yet," Jennsen went on, "the things he said made me think of him in that way-wizardly-like he said about Zedd. When he was saying that, I knew just what he meant, just how he'd felt, because Richard has opened up the world for me, but the gift wasn't the magic he showed me. It was him showing me life, that my life is mine, and worth living."
Kahlan smiled to herself, at how very much that described her own feeling of what Richard had done for her, how he had brought her to cherish life and believe in it not just for others, but, most importantly, for herself.
For a time they sat together, silently watching the empty wasteland.
Kahlan kept an eye on Richard as he tossed in his sleep.
With growing concern, Jennsen, too, watched Richard. "It looks like there's something wrong with him," she whispered as she leaned close.
"He's having a nightmare."
Kahlan watched, as she had so many times before, as Richard made fists in his sleep, as he struggled silently against some private terror.
"It's scary to see him like that," Jennsen said. "He seems so different. When he's awake he always seems so… reasoned."
"You can't reason with a nightmare," Kahlan said in quiet sorrow.
Richard woke with a start."
They were back.
He had been having a bad dream. Like all of his dreams, he didn't remember it. He only knew it was a bad dream because it left behind the shapeless feeling of breathless, heart-pounding, undefined, frantic terror.
