Chapter XII

A CONVERSATION WITH SMAUG

The stars were coming out behind him in a pale sky barred with black when the hobbit crept through the enchanted door and stole into the Mountain. It was far easier going than he expected. This was no goblin entrance, or rough wood-elves' cave. It was a passage made by dwarves, at the height of their wealth and skill: straight as a ruler, smooth floored and smooth-sided, going with a gentle never-varying slope direct-to some distant end in the blackness below.

After a while Balin bade Bilbo "Good luck!" and stopped where he could still see the faint outline of the door, and by a trick of the echoes of the tunnel hear the rustle of the whispering voices of the others just outside. Then the hobbit slipped on his ring, and warned by the echoes to take more than hobbit's care to make no sound, he crept noiselessly down, down, down into the dark. He was trembling with fear, but his little face was set and grim. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages. He loosened his dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and went on.

"Now you are in for it at last, Bilbo Baggins," he said to himself. "You went and put your foot

right in it that night of the party, and now you have got to pull it out and pay for it! Dear me, what a fool I was and am!" said the least Tookish part of him. "I have absolutely no use for dragon-guarded treasures, and the whole lot could stay here forever, if only I could wake up and find this beastly tunnel was my own front-hall at home!"

He did not wake up of course, but went still on and on, till all sign of the door behind had faded

away. He was altogether alone. Soon he thought it was beginning to feel warm. "Is that a kind of a glow I seem to see coming right ahead down there?" he thought. It was. As he went forward it grew and grew, till there was no doubt about it. It was a red light steadily getting redder and redder. Also it was now undoubtedly hot in the tunnel. Wisps of vapor floated up and past him and he began to sweat.

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. At any rate after a short halt go on he did; and you can picture him coming to the end of the tunnel, an opening of much the same size and shape as the door above. Through it peeps the hobbit's little head. What Bilbo saw that moment was a sight he would never in his wildest dreams forget.

Before him lay the vast, long-lost treasure of the dwarves of old. The huge hollowed halls of the once great Dwarven stronghold was filled with enormous piles of precious things, which lay covering the floor entirely on all sides. Our dear hobbit was feeling quite small at the moment, or at least more than he had been recently. To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendor, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves. Collecting himself after a moment, Biblo took a deep breath, and stepped out of the passage.

The hobbit's first order of business was to find something which he could bring back to the others who remained at the entrance to the passage. As he began trenching through the hoard before him, Bilbo started to look about him as he went, scouting out possible items of treasure which he could take. This proved to be much more difficult than he had expected. He would see something which he felt was the most extravagant thing imaginable, but then something else would catch his eye, and he would entirely forget about the treasure which he currently held. How long this went on for I cannot say, although it was for easily over an hour. Soon Bilbo became quite exhausted, and decided to rest, sitting down and resting against one of the great pillars. It was at this moment that he spotted a large two-handled cup and went over to pick it up. As Bilbo bent over and grasped it, a small cascade of coins came sliding down from a particularly large of pile of treasure which lay in front of him. The hobbit, very slowly, looked up, and at that moment felt his little heart beating faster than what thought was possible. For as the gold fell away, it revealed the great scaled brow and closed eyelid of Smaug!

Bilbo had been so taken aback by the sheer size and immensity of the dragon hoard, that he had almost entirely forgotten the dragon itself. And now here he stood, not five feet away from where the beast slept. He began to slowly walk backwards, still holding the cup, attempting to make as little noise as possible. But as he did, the pile of gold and treasure in front of him began to shift and move forward. More coins and precious gems fell away, revealing more and more of Smaug's enormous head. Bilbo quickly dove behind a large piece of broken stone column. And just in time too, for at that moment the gold fell away, revealing the great head, neck, and body of the dragon. He sniffed, and felt a breath of strange air in his cave. Then Smaug spoke.

"Well, thief…I smell you, I hear your breath. I feel your air...Where are you?" The dragon moved his vast head just above where Bilbo hid. "WHERE ARE YOU?". Thinking quickly, the hobbit slipped on the Ring and made a desperate attempt to reach the entrance back up to the tunnel. This would prove to be an unwise decision on his part, as while he may have been invisible, the movement of his feet caused the gold around him to stir and fly in the air as he ran. Smaug moved with such speed something of his size should not be capable of. He quickly spotted the disturbance in the gold as Bilbo ran, and like a cat after it has spotted a mouse, leaped forth, crashing and sliding through the treasure as he did. He nearly crushed Bilbo, but thankfully the hobbit managed to evade the dragon's path. After a moment, Smaug raised his great head, and this time spoke with a voice which could be described as sickly sweet. "Oh, come now, don't be shy, there is plenty and to spare. Step into the light."

For reasons he would not know until long after the ordeal was done and gone, Bilbo suddenly felt compelled to take off the Ring, and expose himself at that very instant. But fear got the better of him, for the moment at least, and he remained hidden, with his back pressed against one of the numerous stone pillars. The dragon extended his head once more, following the scent to the pillar which Bilbo hid behind. "There is something about you, Thief. Something you carry...Something made of gold," said Smaug, "but far more precious." The word precious echoed horribly in Bilbo's head. It had become too much, and in a fit of panic Bilbo removed the Ring from his finger, and stood face to face with the dragon. "Ah, there you are, Thief in the Shadows." Said Smaug, sneering. Bilbo had to act quickly and so, in an obviously nervous voice, attempted to converse with the dragon.

"I..d-did not come t-to steal from you, O Smaug t-the unassessably wealthy. I merely wanted to gaze upon your magnificence..t-to see if you really were as great as the old tales say, I did not believe them to be true." Bilbo hoped his ruse would keep any immediate harm from coming to him, for he had heard from those of his family, on the Took side, that dragons were infamously self-obsessed, and figured flattery would keep him at bay, at least for the moment. The dragon reared his massive head, standing at his full height, so that the hobbit could see the entirety of his vast length.

Smaug was obviously very quite large, however Bilbo only now realized just howbig he was. He was a magnificent red-golden dragon. His once pale, scaly underbelly was now encrusted with precious gems and other valuables from having slept on them for so long. All throughout the length of Smaug's body, Bilbo could make out very faint scars which had healed long ago, from what he suspected were past battles with other dragons. Each of his fingers, if you could call them that, were tipped with razor sharp talons. There he stood, with vast bat-like wings outstretched, and his glowing eyes like embers, fixed on Bilbo. "And do you NOW?"

"Truly, the t-tails and songs..fall utterly short of your enormity, O Smaug the stupendous." Said Bilbo with as much confidence as he could muster.

"Do you think flattery will keep you alive, Thief?" Said Smaug.

"What? No I-"

"'No' indeed," The dragon said through narrowed eyes, "Tell me, you seem familiar with my name, but I don't remember smelling your kind before. Who are you, and where do you come from, may I ask?"

It is never a good idea to reveal your true identity to a dragon, and Bilbo knew that as much as anyone. He thought this would be a good time to once again test out his riddling skills, as he had once done with Gollum.

"Well, if you must know, I come from under the hill...and under hills and over hills my path has led. And...through the air, I am he who walks unseen."

"Lovely titles. What else do you claim to be?" Smaug began to slink about in the dark, his eyes forever fixed on the hobbit as he went.

"I am..Luck Wearer, Riddle-Maker, and…Barrel-Rider." Said Bilbo.

"Barrels," hissed the dragon, "now that is interesting...And what about your little dwarf friends? Where are they hiding?"

Bilbo did his best to look as though he were taken aback, and replied with pretend surprise, "Dw-..Dwarves? No, no dwarves here, you have that all wrong."

"Oh but I don't think so, Barrel-Rider," Smaug's tone was becoming increasingly more aggressive, "They've probably sent you in here to do their dirty work, while they skulk about outside."

"Truly, you are mistaken O Smaug, chiefest and greatest of calamities." The hobbit could sense that the dragon's patience was running thin, and that his suspicion was growing by the minute. He began to very discreetly move back towards the tunnel.

"You have nice manners, for a thief and a liar! I know the smell (and taste) of dwarf, no one better. It is the gold, isn't it? They are drawn to treasure like flies to dead flesh! Did they think I did not know this day would come? Did they I was a fool to not expect when a pack of canting dwarves would come crawling back to the Mountain?" Smaug's voice shook the mountain to its core.

"You are once again mistaken, O Smaug the impenetrable. Not gold alone brought us hither."

"What did you say?" Growled the dragon. There was a lot which he did not understand at all, especially when it came to the names which Bilbo had given to himself (Although I expect you do, seeing as how we have been with Bilbo on his journey up till this point), however he had guessed, from the "barrel-rider" bit, that men from Lake Town had sent Bilbo and the dwarves up the Mountain. "What else could it be then? Do tell."

"...Revenge!" Bilbo's voice echoed all throughout the cavern.

Then Smaug laughed, a horrible sound. So loud that the dwarves, who had been waiting back up at the tunnel entrance, had thought their dear burglar had met his end deep down in the dark.

"It's Oakenshield, isn't it! That filthy dwarvish usurper. He has sent you in here to see whether he could thieve from me, to see if he could catch me while I was asleep, I can imagine. You are being used, Thief in the Shadows. You were only ever a means to an end. The Coward-Oakenshield has weighed the value of your life and found it worth nothing," As he said this, a grin began to grow on the dragon's face, and a chuckle rumbled in his throat, "What exactly did he promise you in return for your excellent service? Hm? A share of the treasure, perhaps? As if it was his to give. Let me tell you, I will not part with a single coin. Not. One. Piece, of it! You believe you can deceive me, O Barrel-Rider!? You have come from Lake Town. I have not been down that way for an age and an age. This is all a part of some scheme hatched between those filthy dwarves, and those miserable tub-trading Lakemen. Perhaps it is time I payed them a visit!"

As he spoke, Bilbo had quietly made his way around the dragon and nearly back to the tunnel entrance. But Smaug once again whipped around, and his great tail smashed the pillar which the hobbit hid behind. The dragon had partially enjoyed their conversation at first, but now he was infuriated. The underside of his neck and belly had begun to glow like charcoal on an open fire, and Bilbo felt the air around him become noticeably hotter.

"I laid low the warriors of old, and their like is not in the world today. I instill terror in the hearts of men. I am King Under the Mountain! My armor is iron, no blade can pierce me! My teeth are swords, my claws are spears! The very shock of my tail is a thunderbolt! My wings are a hurricane, and my breath, death! So tell me, thief, how do you choose to die?"

The dragon bellowed forth an enormous column of flame after the hobbit, but by now Bilbo was in a full sprint and managed to quickly slip into the tunnel and make his way back to the others. Smaug barely managed to thrust his massive head into the little opening, sending flames which licked the hobbit's feet as he ran. Even after he was far enough away, so that he was safe from the fire, Bilbo could feel the ground beneath his feet shake and tremble as Smaug thrashed and trampled around in the great hall. Bilbo made it back to the others, and they were quick to ask as many questions as they could. However, they were cut short when Smaug came hurtling out of the Front Gate.

"THIEVES! FIRE! MURDER! DO YOU WISH TO SEE WHAT REAL REVENGE LOOKS LIKE, BARREL-RIDER!? I AM FIRE AND DEATH, AND I SHALL SHOW YOU REVENGE!" Smaug had never before felt such rage. He circled once around the Mountain side, licking it with immense flame and beating his wings with a noise like a hurricane, and then flew down into the valley and towards Laketown.