Castle of Wizardry

calculations and found out that she'd been with me for just over a thousand years. I was a bit amazed by that, but she seemed indifferent to the fact. 'Wolves live as long as they choose to live,' was all she said. 'Then one day I had to change my form for some reason or other - I forget exactly why. She saw me do it, and that was the end of any peace for me. She just said, 'So that's how you do it,' and promptly changed herself into a snowy owl. She seemed to take a great delight in startling me, and I never knew what shape I'd see when I turned around. She was fondest of the owl, though. A few years after that she left me. I was rather surprised to find that I missed her. We'd been together for a very long time." He broke off and once again he looked away.
    "Did you ever see her again?" Garion wanted to know.
    Belgarath nodded. "She saw to that - though I didn't know it at the time. I was running an errand for my Master somewhere to the north of the Vale and I came across a small, neatly thatched cottage in a grove of trees by a small river. A woman named Poledra lived in the cottage - a woman with tawny hair and curiously golden eyes. We grew to know each other, and eventually we were married. She was Polgara's mother - and Beldaran's."
    "You were saying that you met the wolf again," Garion reminded him.
    "You don't listen too well, Garion," the old man said, looking directly at his grandson. There was a deep and ancient injury in his eyes - a hurt so great that Garion knew it would be there for as long as the old man lived.
    "You don't mean-?"
    "It took me a while to accept it myself, actually. Poledra was very patient and very determined. When she found out that I couldn't accept her as a mate in the form of a wolf, she simply found a different shape. She got what she wanted in the end." He sighed.
    "Aunt Pol's mother was a wolf?" Garion was stunned.
    "No, Garion," Belgarath replied calmly, "she was a woman - a very lovely woman. The change of shape is absolute."
    "But - but she started out as a wolf."
    "So?"
    "But " The whole notion was somehow shocking.
    "Don't let your prejudices run away with you," Belgarath told him. Garion struggled with the idea. It seemed monstrous somehow. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "It's unnatural, no matter what you say."
    "Garion," the old man reminded him with a pained look, "just about everything we do is unnatural. Moving rocks with your mind isn't the most natural thing in the world, if you stop and think about it."
    "But this is different," Garion protested. "Grandfather, you married a wolf - and the wolf had children. How could you do that?"
    Belgarath sighed and shook his head. "You're a very stubborn boy, Garion," he observed. "It seems that you're never going to understand until you've been through the experience. Let's go over behind that hill, and I'll show you how it's done. There's no point in upsetting the rest of the caravan."
    "Mind if I come along?" Silk asked, his nose twitching with curiosity.
    "Might not be a bad idea," Belgarath agreed. "You can hold the horses. Horses tend to panic in the presence of wolves."
    They rode away from the caravan track under the leaden sky and circled around behind a low, heath-covered hill. "This should do," Belgarath decided, reining in and dismounting in a shallow swale just behind the hill. The swale was covered with new grass, green with spring.
    "The whole trick is to create the image of the animal in your mind," Belgarath explained, "down to the last detail. Then you direct your will inward - upon yourself - and then change, fitting yourself into the image."
    Garion frowned, not understanding.
    "It's going to take too long if I have to explain it in words," Belgarath said. "Here - watch - and watch with your mind as well as your eyes."
    Unbidden, the shape of the great gray wolf he had seen on occasion before came into Garion's mind. He could clearly see the gray - shot muzzle and the silver ruff: Then he felt the surge and heard the hollow roaring sound in his mind. For an instant, the image of the wolf curiously mingled with an image of Belgarath himself - as if the two were trying to both occupy the same space. Then Belgarath was gone and only the wolf remained.
    Silk whistled, then took a firmer grip on the reins of their startled horses.
    Belgarath changed back again to an ordinary - looking old man in a rust-brown tunic and gray, hooded cloak. "Do you understand?" he asked Garion.
    "I think so," Garion replied, a bit