"That isn't really necessary, Vordai," Belgarath said. "What is it that you want exactly?"

"I was coming to that, Belgarath," she replied. "After I escaped into the fens, I discovered my little friends here." She affectionately stroked the side of Poppi's furry little face, and Poppi nuzzled at her hand ecstatically. "They were afraid of me at first, but they finally grew less shy. They began bringing me fish - and flowers - as tokens of friendship, and I needed friends very badly at that time. I altered them a bit out of gratitude."

"You shouldn't have, you know," the old man said rather sadly.

She shrugged. "Should and shouldn't have very little meaning to me any more."

"Not even the Gods would do what you did."

"The Gods have other amusements." She looked directly at him then. "I've been waiting for you, Belgarath - for years now. I knew that sooner or later you'd come back into the fens. This meeting you spoke of is very important to you, isn't it?"

"It's the most important event in the history of the world."

"That depends on your point of view, I suppose. You need my help, though."

"I think we can manage, Vordai."

"Perhaps, but how do you expect to get out of the fens?"

He looked at her sharply.

"I can open the way for you to the dry ground at the edge of the swamp, or I can see to it that you wander around in these marshes forever - in which case this meeting you're concerned about will never happen, will it? That puts me in a very interesting situation, wouldn't you say?"

Belgarath's eyes narrowed.

"I discovered that when men deal with each other, there's usually an exchange of some kind," she added with a strange little smile. "Something for something; nothing for nothing. It seems to be a sensible arrangement."

"Exactly what did you have in mind?"

"The fenlings are my friends," she replied. "In a very special way, my children. But men look upon them as animals with pelts worth the taking. They trap them, Belgarath, and they kill them for their fur. The fine ladies in Boktor and Kotu dress themselves in the skins of my children and give no thought to the grief it causes me. They call my children animals and they come into the fens to hunt them."

"They are animals, Vordai," he told her gently.