Chapter Six

"The Lonely Mountain," Bilbo read, speaking out loud without realising it. His eye had been drawn straight to the centre of the map, where a red figure curled around the black outline of a single peak. The figure was a dragon. He remembered that a dragon had featured in the song the dwarves had just sung; now he began to understand that the lyrics had been accurate. But surely the same beast couldn't still be there now, so many years later? He would have to add that to the constantly growing list of questions he wanted answered.

"I don't see that this will help us much," Thorin said, indicating the map. "I remember the Mountain well enough, and the lands about it." He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. Bilbo risked a quick glance at Thorin, who looked more determined than his tone suggested.

There is one point you haven't noticed," Gandalf pointed out. "That is the secret entrance." Bilbo and the dwarves all leaned forward, watching attentively as the wizard's finger brushed the parchment. Gandalf indicated several lines of runes; although Bilbo knew his letters and put them to good use, he didn't recognise these Dwarvish characters. A nasty suspicion formed in his mind as he put together the hidden door and his role as a burglar, but Bilbo tried to focus on what his companions were saying.

"How do we know it is secret?" Thorin asked, and it took Bilbo a few seconds to realise that he was talking about the door. "Smaug has lived there long enough to find out everything there is to know."

"He can't have used it," Gandalf said. "It is too small. 'Five feet high the door and three may walk abreast," say the runes."

Bilbo didn't entirely agree with this. "It seems a great big hole to me," he said. His voice came out somewhat higher than he intended, and he hoped, somewhat desperately, that Thorin wouldn't notice. "How could such a large door be kept secret from everybody?" he asked, more confidently than before.

"In lots of ways." It was the wizard who answered, and Bilbo wondered for a moment if there was anything Gandalf didn't know. "I forgot to mention," Gandalf said, fishing in an inside pocket of his robes, "That with this map went a key." He handed it over to Thorin, who turned it over and over, examining it in the light of Bilbo's lamp.

Bilbo listened as the dwarves discussed how they might get to the Mountain, the best routes to take and places to avoid, but he had nothing to add to the conversation until Thorin turned and asked for Bilbo's opinion. The hobbit couldn't tell if the dwarf was joking or not, but chose to reply as if the enquiry had been serious. "First I should like to know a bit more about things," he began, but he had barely got the words out before a general uproar meant that nothing else he said would be heard.

It was some time before Bilbo managed to convince the dwarves to give him a full account of their business, and several times they accused him of not listening. He tried his best to be courteous but official with his requests for further information, which must have worked because eventually Thorin told the story. Bilbo listened, mesmerised, to the dwarf whom he now knew to be King Under the Mountain.

Eventually Bilbo managed to put together the basic facts that he had been waiting for; in the time that Thorin's grandfather Thror had ruled under the Lonely Mountain, Smaug had come, attracted by Thror's hoard of gold. The dragon had destroyed the dwarves' kingdom of Erabor inside the Mountain and the nearby town of Men, Dale. Thror and his son Thrain had escaped through the secret door and Thorin had been outside the Mountain, but many dwarves had not been so lucky. Bilbo shivered at Thorin's account of that dreadful day and the life the surviving dwarves had been forced to live in the years since.

"I have often wondered about my father's and grandfather's escape," Thorin finished. "I now see they must have had a private side door. Apparently they made a map and I should like to know how Gandalf got hold of it." Bilbo wondered at Thorin's tone and, despite the dwarf's less-than-polite challenge, the hobbit couldn't help but respect his courage. Was Thorin brave, or had he crossed the line into foolishness?

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger," Bilbo whispered, but nobody heard him. He said this again, many times, in later days, until it became something of a proverb.

"I was given it," Gandalf said, completely calmly. "Your grandfather Thror," he looked at Thorin so intently now that there might have been nobody else in the crowded room, "Was killed in the Mines of Moria by Azog the goblin."

Thorin swore, or at least Bilbo assumed it to be a curse even though he didn't recognise the Dwarvish words.

"And Thrain your father went away a hundred years ago," Gandalf continued, getting a nod from Thorin this time. "Your father gave me this to give to you. He went away to try his luck with the map after your grandfather was killed, but he never got near the Mountain. I found him a prisoner in the dungeons of the Necromancer. I tried to save your father but it was too late. He had forgotten almost everything except the map and the key."

"We must give a thought to the Necromancer," Thorin said, and his deep voice was full of threat.

"Don't be absurd!" Gandalf counselled. "He is an enemy far beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together. The dragon and the Mountain are more than big enough tasks for you!"

Bilbo had no idea who or what the Necromancer was, but he agreed with Gandalf; if it was worse than the dragon, then he didn't want Thorin going anywhere near it. "Hear, hear!" he said, showing his support for Gandalf's good sense, but the dwarves misunderstood.

"Hear what?" they asked, leaving Bilbo to scramble for something suitable to say.