"Quite a long time," Belgarath replied. "I remember that I asked her about that once. She answered with another question. It was an irritating habit of hers. She just said, 'What is time to a wolf?' I made a few 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."