"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 dubiously.

"Try it. I'll lead you through it one step at a time." Garion started to put a wolf together in his mind.

"Don't forget the toenails," Belgarath told him. "They may not look like much, but they're very important."

Garion put the toenails in. "Tail's too short."

Garion fixed that.

"That's about right. Now fit yourself into it."

Garion put his will to it. "Change," he said.