"Not any more." Almost without seeming to think, Vordai put her arm about Poppi's shoulders. "It may be that you were right when you said that I shouldn't have tampered with them, but it's too late now to change it back." She sighed. "I'm a witch, Belgarath," she continued, "not a sorceress. My life has a beginning and an end, and it's approaching its end, I think. I won't live forever, as you and Polgara have done. I've lived several hundred years already and I'm growing very tired of life. As long as I'm alive, I can keep men from coming into the fens; but once I'm gone, my children will have no protection."

"And you want me to take them into my care?"

"No, Belgarath. You're too busy; and sometimes you forget promises you don't care to remember. I want you to do the one thing that will make it forever impossible for men to think of the fenlings as animals."

His eyes widened as what she was suggesting dawned on him.

"I want you to give my children the power of speech, Belgarath," Vordai said. "I can't do it. My witchcraft doesn't reach that far. Only a sorcerer can make it possible for them to talk."

"Vordai-"

"That's my price, Belgarath," she told him. "That's what my help will cost you. Take it or leave it."

Chapter Nineteen

THEY SLEPT THAT night in Vordai's cottage, though Garion slept very little. The ultimatum of the witch of the fens troubled him profoundly. He knew that tampering with nature had far-reaching effects, and to go as far as Vordai wished might forever erase the dividing line between men and animals. The philosophical and theological implications of that step were staggering. There were, moreover, other worries. It was entirely possible that Belgarath could not do what Vordai demanded of him. Garion was almost positive that his grandfather had not attempted to use his will since his collapse months before, and now Vordai had set him an almost impossible task.

What would happen to Belgarath if he tried and failed? What would that do to him? Would the doubts then take over and rob him of any possibility of ever regaining his power? Desperately Garion tried to think of a way to warn his grandfather without arousing those fatal doubts.