Kili did not recover as the boat slid silently onwards. Fili and Bilbo tried all they could think of to arouse him from his stupor, whispering, shouting, singing, shaking, even slapping the little dwarf in the face. But nothing had the slightest effect, and by the time the lights of Lake-Town had shrunk to pin-pricks across the water, Fili had sunk into despair. He sat with his back against the low side of the boat, Kili leaning back against his chest, and he stared at Bilbo with eyes too wide, the whites bright in the moonlight.

"What if he doesn't wake up?" he asked, sounding never more like a child.

"He will, my dear lad," Bilbo said. "Of course he will wake."

Fili did not respond to this, but he clung to his brother as if it was he who had the fear of drowning, and his head sank until his forehead was pressed against Kili's shoulder. It was almost like a grotesque parody of how they had sat earlier that very evening, Kili awake and alert and Fili pressed up against him, sleeping on his shoulder. It sometimes seemed to Bilbo that the world had a very unpleasant sense of irony.

After a while, it seemed that Fili had fallen asleep, and Kili, of course, might have been asleep or awake and seemed in fact to be neither, his head lolling back on his brother's shoulder and his eyes staring at nothing. The night was chill, autumn drawing now to a close, and Bilbo took off his jacket, which was still mostly dry aside from one sleeve where he had reached into the water after the dwarves, and spread it carefully across the two of them. It barely even covered Kili, narrow though his shoulders were for a dwarf, but it was all that Bilbo could offer.

Finally, he could bear to watch no longer, but stood and made his way cautiously to where Bard stood by the tiller, clinging to some fixed object at all times, though the lake was flat as glass and there was barely a breath of wind. What wind there was blew in the wrong direction, and it seemed for every yard they drew closer to the mountain, they travelled a hundred or more sidewards to it.

"It will be a long journey," Bilbo said.

"It is not a good night for sailing," Bard replied. "A good night for fishing - see how they jump in the moonlight!"

Bilbo watched, and saw the surface of the water broken again and again as the fish leapt up after the last dancing insects of the year. It was a beautiful sight indeed, but his spirits were too low to really enjoy it.

"Your friend," said Bard. "Why does he not wake?"

"I'm blessed if I know," Bilbo said. "I've not seen this before." Other things, yes, unsettling things, but not this, not this seeming suspension somewhere between life and death.

"I have known men who spent too long under water," Bard said. "They lived, but never woke again. But I do not think he was under the surface for long enough, and the other two seem none the worse for wear."

"No," Bilbo sighed, "it is not that. I told you he is not well."

"You did," said Bard. "In that, at least, it seems you spoke the truth."

They lapsed into silence, then and Bilbo stood and watched the glassy water slip by, and the fish jumping, and the mountain that stood above all, watchful, waiting.

Fili slept on, and Kili stared, and Dwalin sat on the deck on the opposite side of the boat and watched them both, never taking his eyes from them. As the moon began to sink towards the mountain, the cold silver fire of its snowy peak became quite an astounding sight, and Bilbo found himself approaching Dwalin and sitting down beside him.

"Your mountain looks very fine tonight," he said.

Dwalin spared a glance for the mountain, in all its ghostly splendour.

"Aye," he said, turning his eyes back to Fili and Kili. "It is a cold comfort."

Bilbo sighed. "Kili will wake," he said. "He has survived much worse than this."

Dwalin did not reply for a moment, and when he did, he did not look at Bilbo.

"That is a cold comfort, too, Mr. Baggins," he said.

They reached the opposite shore in the coldest hours before dawn, and Bard made fast the boat and then leaned down to shake Fili by the shoulder.

"Wake up, master dwarf," he said. "You will soon be back on dry land."

He wrapped his arms around Kili and tried to lift him away from his brother, and Fili, raising his head and blinking sleep from his eyes, held tight.

"I will carry him," he said, his voice rough.

"You have been sitting still in wet clothes for hours," Bard said. "I will be surprised if you can walk yourself."

And so it proved, for once Bard had lifted Kili into his arms, it took both Dwalin and Bilbo to help Fili to his feet and get him off the boat, and the three of them stumbled after Bard as he led them up a steep slope into the edge of a forest. It was a pleasant forest, open and green, not like the tangled boughs of Mirkwood, and Bard led them to a broad, flat plateau and laid Kili gently on the ground.

"This is far enough that your campfire will not be seen from the lake," he said.

Fili dropped to his knees beside his brother and took him under the arms, dragging him to the nearest tree. He set his back against it and pulled Kili up so they were sitting as they had on the boat.

"You will only find yourself stiff and sore again, master dwarf," said Bard.

Fili met his stare with a half-dazed one of his own. "He doesn't like to lie down," he mumbled.

Bard shrugged. "Have it your way," he said, and turned to go. Bilbo followed him a little way down the slope.

"Thank you, Mr. Bard," he said. "You have done more than anyone could have asked of you. And if you can find a way to tell our friends where we are, I would be most grateful."

Bard eyed him up and down. "I would not leave you this way," he said, casting a glance back to where Fili and Kili sat. "It does not seem right."

"You will do us a much greater service by telling our friends where we are than by staying to be one more helpless onlooker," Bilbo said. "Unless you know of any way to heal a wounded mind."

"A mind?" said Bard. "No. Give me an arm or a leg, even a heart, and I might try, at least. A mind must heal itself, or not be healed at all."

Bilbo nodded, for it was nothing he did not know. "Will you thank Tilda and Sigrid for me?" he said. "And Bain too, of course. Your children do you great credit."

"That they do," Bard said. "And now I must catch some fish so that they are not without food tonight. Goodbye, Mr. Baggins. If I can, I will bring your friends back to you myself. If not, should I tell them of your friend's malady?"

Bilbo considered a moment, then shook his head. "If fortune smiles, he'll rouse himself before they arrive," he said. "There is no need to worry them yet."

"Then I hope fortune smiles, master hobbit," said Bard. And with one more glance back at the dwarves, he made his way back down the slope towards the lake.

It was a long, dreary day of waiting, and Kili did not wake up. Fili, though awake, sank into a strange kind of fugue state that was not at all far from his brother's, so that Bilbo wondered if he was trying to follow him to wherever it was he had gone. Dwalin stood silent watch, and so it fell to Bilbo to try and keep all their spirits up, and he chattered and sang about anything and everything he could think of, until he had quite exhausted himself. Eventually, he fell asleep, for he had not slept at all the night before, and neither the night nor the day that followed had been easy.

He woke towards evening, when the shadows were grown long, to find that Dwalin was staring at something through the trees,

"A ship," he said. "It is Bard."

Fili would not leave Kili, of course, and Dwalin would leave neither of them, so it fell to Bilbo to clamber back down the slope and meet the ship, and when it ground up on the shore, he saw ten dwarves peering out at him, and Thorin Oakenshield was the first onto dry land.

"Thorin!" cried Bilbo. "I think I have never been more pleased to see you."

"I will take that as a compliment, Mr. Baggins," said Thorin, with a measure of good humour, and Bilbo remembered that of course he did not yet know of his nephew's condition. Bard leapt ashore, then, and Thorin turned to him.

"I am in your debt, Bard of Lake-Town," he said.

"I will not forget it, Thorin King Under the Mountain," Bard replied.

Thori gave him a grave nod, and then turned to help the other dwarves bring the supplies ashore. Bilbo turned to Bard.

"Did you have any trouble getting them out?" he asked.

"None at all," said Bard. "Once it became clear that there would be no laying hands on the prisoner, the Master became quite eager to please your king once more. After all, it is now the only way he will see any of the gold."

"And Ulf?" Bilbo asked.

"Ulf died in a bar brawl," Bard said, and Bilbo thought he saw a spark of amusement in the man's grim face. "Everybody knows that."

"I hope the Master is not angry with you," Bilbo said then.

"The Master is always angry with me," said Bard. "But I do not break any laws, and I pay my tolls, and he cannot touch me." He glanced up towards the forest, then. "And your friend?"

"The same," Bilbo said with a sigh.

Bard dug in his pocket, holding out a little bottle. "Sigrid asked me to give this to you," he said. "She says two drops on the tongue will wake even Bain when he has spent all night in the tavern." He shrugged. "I do not think it will work, but she made me promise I would pass it on to you."

Bilbo took the bottle and gave a quick bow. "Give her my thanks," he said. "And tell her - tell her I am sorry to have brought such trouble to your doorstep, and I hope we meet again some day, under happier circumstances. Tell them all."

Bard nodded gravely. "I cannot say I am glad to have met you, Bilbo Baggins," he said. "But I wish you well, and I hope your friend recovers."

He turned back to his boat, now empty of dwarves, and he had set foot on the deck when Bilbo called to him.

"Why did you help us, Mr. Bard?" he asked.

Bard looked back at him. "My daughter is an excellent judge of character," he said, and disappeared behind the sail of his boat.

Thorin came to Bilbo then and clapped him on the shoulder. "And how fare my nephews?" he said.

Bilbo sighed. "There is something I must tell you," he said.

Oin poked and prodded Kili, peered into his eyes and ears and checked his fingernails and toenails and finally announced that he could see nothing wrong with the lad at all, besides the obvious fact that his mind seemed to have gone somewhere else. He laid some herbs on Kili's tongue and a poultice on his forehead, and Bilbo dropped two drops of Sigrid's potion into his mouth, and then three, and four, but nothing seemed to make any difference at all. Thorin stood, his face set in bleak lines, and Fili sat and stared as though he was not entirely sure where he was, and all the cheer of their warm, bright days in Lake-Town seemed to evaporate as the sun set beyond the lake.

"Balin," said Thorin. "How many days?"

"Six," Balin said.

"And we are fifteen leagues from the gates of Erebor," Thorin said. "Six days." He stared at Kili. "If we only had a pony."

"He doesn't like ponies," Fili said absently. Thorin's mouth twisted.

"No," he said. "Well, since we have none, that is not a concern."

"I will carry him if it is needed," Dwalin said, and Thorin turned to him and laid a hand briefly on his shoulder.

"I know you will, old friend," he said, and then looked back at Kili. "Six days."

"We can spare one," Balin said. "If it is needed."

"It will be a hard march if we do," Thorin said.

"It would be a hard march if we had a hundred days," Balin said.

Thorin stood a moment in thought. "We will wait until morning to decide," he said. "Perhaps he will have roused himself by then."

The evening was not much more pleasant than the day. In fact, it might have been less so, for thirteen dismal dwarves make for a much greater weight of gloom than three. Ori came to sit beside Bilbo after their cheerless supper, and he stared miserably at Kili, who still sat propped against his brother on the other side of the fire.

"It's awful," he said.

"Yes," Bilbo said. "Yes, it is, rather." He patted Ori's knee, but could think of no words of comfort for him.

Ori hunched his shoulders and drew a sheaf of papers from his pack. "I saved these for him," he said. "I don't know- do you want them?"

Bilbo took the papers and saw that the top one was the picture of him and Kili. He smiled at it and tried to remember how long ago it had been that Kili had been so enthralled by it. Could it have been only yesterday? Surely it was much longer ago, and yet when Bilbo counted the nights that had passed he realised that it was not.

"You should keep them, Master Ori," he said. "You can give them back to him yourself when he's better. He will be delighted that you brought them away with you."

Ori took the pictures back and stowed them carefully in his pack once more. "But he will get better, Mr. Baggins?" he said.

"Yes, my lad," Bilbo said firmly. "He will."

But although it seemed to fall to Bilbo to tell all and sundry that Kili would recover, he himself was not so sure. He wanted to believe it as much as they did, but when he looked at the frightening blankness on Kili's face, he found it hard to imagine that there was anything left in there at all. He did not know where Kili had gone, but it was clear that he not there with them. So it was that when Fili again asked the question that all of them were trying to avoid, Bilbo did not answer him.

It was late, though few were sleeping. Thorin sat in shadow, face sombre, staring into the darkness under the trees. Bilbo was wrapped in his blanket, looking at the fire. And Fili shifted and sighed and said, "What if he never wakes up?"

And in truth, it should not have been Bilbo's duty to answer the question. Thorin was their uncle, and the leader of the company, and the King Under the Mountain. But Thorin's face was grown long with despair, and he made no answer, but simply rose and walked away into the darkness.

"Bilbo," said Fili desperately.

"He will wake," Bilbo said, getting to his feet himself. "He will."

He found Thorin standing in a clearing not fifty yards from the campfire. The moon shone down, splintered by the trees into patterns of silver and black, and Thorin turned and turned on his heels as if searching for something.

"Your nephew asked you a question back there," Bilbo said, feeling torn between anger and pity.

"I know this place," Thorin said, as if he had not spoken at all. "I passed through here many times when I was a young dwarf in Erebor." He shook his head. "I never could have imagined then that there would come a time when there was no King Under the Mountain."

Bilbo looked around himself. The clearing, though pleasant enough, was entirely foreign to his eyes, even the trees such as he had never seen growing in the Shire. The moonlight seemed sharper here, with a harder edge, and the mountain reared ever above them. How strange, to think that for Thorin, these lands were as familiar as Buckland and Michel Delving were for Bilbo.

"Does this never end, Mr. Baggins?" Thorin said then, and his head was bowed, his voice shot through with grief. "Have we not suffered enough?"

Bilbo crept closer, and laid a hand on the dwarf king's arm. "There is still a King Under the Mountain," he said. "He's just not yet quite as under it as he should be."

Thorin stared at him a moment, then choked on a laugh, bitter-edged but true. "Aye, Mr. Baggins," he said. "Not yet."

Bilbo finally fell asleep a little before midnight, and when he woke, it was to someone insistently kicking him in the side. He sat up angrily to ask whoever it was what they were playing at, only to meet Fili's terrified eyes as he clung desperately to his brother, who was shaking violently, his limbs twitching and jerking, his eyes rolling in his head. Bilbo lunged forward, but he was beaten to his goal by Thorin, who was all of a sudden on his knees in front of his nephews, clasping Kili's face in both hands and holding it steady, staring at him as if he hoped to pin him with only the force of his gaze.

"Look at me," he commanded. "Kili, look. You will look at me."

And Kili tried, it was clear he tried, and that gave Bilbo hope more than anything, for it was clear to him now that wherever the little dwarf had gone, he had come back from there, and he still understood at least something. But his body kept up its twitching and shuddering, and though he kept trying to bring his eyes back to Thorin's, they rolled and wandered as if of their own accord. But Thorin held steady for long, long minutes, commanding Kili over and again to look, to look, look at me my nephew, and Fili did his best to contain Kili's flailing limbs, and Bilbo, who could get no purchase on Kili's shaking body, put his hand instead on Fili's shoulder and squeezed as tight as he could.

And then, somehow, Kili looked. His body still trembled and shook, but his arms and legs only twitched, now, no longer jerking and thrashing, and his eyes grew steady, staring at Thorin, blinking slowly as if stunned. And Thorin let out a deep sigh and leaned his forehead against his nephew's, but did not close his eyes, nor break eye contact with Kili. Through it all, Kili made not a sound, but his hand came out to grasp Bilbo's sleeve, his fingers twisting in the fabric until they grew white and bloodless, and Bilbo laid his own hand over Kili's and stroked it gently.

"There now," he said. "There now."

For he could think of nothing else to say.

Kili did not speak that night, nor the next morning, and even when the sun was an hour above the horizon, he still shook and trembled as though frozen to the core, though his skin was no cooler than it should have been. His eyes wandered at times, but only when there was no-one for him to look at, and so Bilbo found himself taking shifts with Fili to sit before him and maintain eye contact. And when the sun was two hours above the horizon, Balin sighed a heavy sigh.

"Six days, Thorin," he said.

Thorin nodded and crouched beside Kili. "Can you walk?" he asked.

Kili fixed his eyes on him, but made no response. He shuddered, slow and rolling, and his fingers twisted in Bilbo's sleeve.

"I will help him," Fili said, though he seemed barely steady on his feet himself.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Bilbo asked. "He's still clearly quite poorly."

"No, it is not in the least a good idea," said Thorin. "But if we miss the last light of Durin's Day, we will be stranded on the mountain with nowhere to go."

There was no arguing with that, and so Fili and Bilbo started trying to lift Kili to his feet, only to find Dwalin standing beside them, achieving with one hand what they had failed to do with four.

"Neither of you should be walking," he said, eyeing Fili critically.

"Then we will lean on each other," said Fili, and he wrapped his arm under his brother's shoulders and stood tall, though on shaking legs.

Dwalin raised a slow eyebrow, but when Thorin gave the call for them to fall in, he made no objection. But he walked behind Fili and Kili for the rest of the day.

It was a slow march, and a wretched one, for Kili could barely keep his feet and Fili demanded a halt every two hours to let his brother rest. They covered no more than two leagues, and Balin began to look distinctly worried. And still Kili did not speak, and although his trembling subsided as the day went on, his silence grew more and more troublesome to Bilbo's mind, until he found himself once again wondering if Kili had somehow simply lost his tongue.

In the evening, he sat beside Kili where the little dwarf was propped against a tree and busied himself mending a tear in his jacket. It was more patches than original fabric, now, and looked quite a fright, but he still remembered when it had been quite a handsome thing, and he had been very fond of wearing it when he wanted to make an impression. It would surely make an impression still, but perhaps not quite of the same kind.

"Hobbit," said Kili, "I'm know."

"I know," said Bilbo absently, and then stabbed himself with his needle as he turned to stare in astonishment at Kili. "Why, Master Kili!" he said. "I had begun to think I would never hear your voice again!"

"What?" came Fili's voice, and Bilbo looked up to see him standing frozen in the act of stepping back out of the trees into the firelight. "Did he speak?"

"He did indeed!" said Bilbo, and Fili made a noise of delighted relief and dropped down next to his brother, hugging him tight against his side for a moment before letting go and watching him cautiously. But Kili did not seem to have been frightened by the embrace, nor did his eyes wander or his limbs tremble. He glanced briefly at Fili, but then returned to watching Bilbo.

"All right, all right," Bilbo said, aware that he was smiling all over his face. "What is it that you know, my lad?"

"I know not punish," Kili said.

Bilbo opened his mouth, but Kili shook his head quickly. "Not can - not can speak good," he said, as though each word required an effort. "Hobbit listen." He turned and looked at Fili. "Fili listen?"

"I'm listening," Fili said quietly, and Bilbo nodded and set his hands on his knees.

Kili sat quietly for a moment, and then hunched his shoulders a little. "I'm know dwarfs not want punish," he said. "Need - need go water, men, men," he shook his head a moment and paused. "Men want kill," he managed finally. "Need go water. Not hobbit want punish, not Fili want punish." He stopped and looked from one to the other. "Understand," he said. "I'm understand."

He fell silent then, and Bilbo waited to see if there was more, but Fili had apparently decided there was not.

"But then why did you not speak for so long, if you knew we were not trying to punish you?" he asked. "Why did you - why did you go away?"

Kili stared down at his hands. "Not know," he said. "Head is bad. Not think right."

"Your head is not bad," Bilbo said firmly, but Kili looked at him, and his face was filled with certainty.

"Head is not right," he said. "Not right."

After that, Kili seemed to sink into dark thoughts, though he was not mute as before and answered if he was asked a question. But he volunteered nothing and seemed lost in his own mind more often than not, which Bilbo found rather alarming, given what had just happened. It wasn't until Bilbo glanced absently across the camp and saw Ori that he realised he had the perfect thing to make Kili feel better.

"Master Ori," he called. "Kili wants to talk to you!"

Ori sat up, looking delighted, and then grabbed his pack and hastened over. "Hello, Kili!" he said. "Are you feeling better?"

Kili glanced at him half-heartedly. "Hello Ori," he said, and Ori's face fell at his flat tone.

"Ori has something to show you," Bilbo said, and raised his eyebrows at Ori. Ori nodded quickly, and pulled the sheaf of papers from his pack.

"Here you are," he said. "I thought you might want these back."

Kili took the pile without speaking and laid it in his lap, looking down at it for a moment as if he wasn't sure what it was. The pictures were face down, and Bilbo reached over and carefully turned the whole pile over. The topmost picture was the one of Kili and Bilbo, and Kili stared at it without blinking for long enough that Bilbo began to worry he didn't even recognise it, but then he reached out a tentative hand and brushed his fingertips across the image of Bilbo's face.

"Pictures," he whispered. "Pictures not gone."

"No, they are not gone," said Bilbo. "Ori saved them for you."

Kili lifted his head to look at Ori then, and to his surprise Bilbo saw that he seemed close to tears. "Thank you Ori," he said. "Thank you Ori. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Ori said, smiling, but still looking quite worried. "Are you all right, Kili?"

Kili looked back down the picture, and he made an expression that Bilbo didn't recognise, for he had never seen it on Kili's face before, but when he thought about it later he realised it might almost have been a smile.

"Pictures not gone," he said.

They walked, and they walked, and on the second day they came to a place where everything was black and burned and nothing grew. Balin called it the Desolation of the Dragon, and Bilbo shivered to think that this beast, who had seemed quite mythical to him even after all this time, had actually destroyed such a wide swath of countryside around the mountain. They made good time, for Kili seemed able to walk much faster now, and although he still did not speak much, his spirits seemed much improved by the reappearance of his pictures.

On the third day, they came across the ruins of a great city, now nothing but charred and tumble-down stones. The dwarves were grown quiet and pensive, and they glanced often towards the mountain. They were close enough now that Bilbo could see what looked like a great gate between two spurs of rock, and Thorin stood still among the ruined houses and stared at it for a long time.

"There stood my grandfather," he said, "and there stood I, once upon a time."

"And there you will stand again," said Balin. "But not if we don't keep moving."

Keep moving they did, and on the fourth night they camped in a narrow valley on the western side of the mountain, right up against it so that it towered above them. The next day was Durin's Day, and Bilbo could hardly remember what life had been like when he had been just a hobbit of the Shire, though it had been barely half a year ago. He sat beside Kili and stared up at the mountain, wondering if there was indeed a dragon living inside it, and if so, whether any of them would live to see the spring come round again. Kili stared, too, and after a while he turned to Bilbo.

"Hobbit," he said, "why we are go mountain?"

"Well," said Bilbo, "it is a quest, you see. Your Uncle Thorin used to live there a long time ago, but then a dragon stole it from him, and now he wants to take it back."

"It's our home," Fili put in. "Our kingdom."

Kili stared at the mountain thoughtfully, but did not reply.

"Do you understand?" Bilbo asked.

"No," said Kili. "I not understand."

Durin's Day dawned grey and cool, and the dwarves were up before dawn, packing their supplies and dividing into subdued groups to search the mountainside for the hidden door. Bilbo found himself with Fili and Kili, and Fili declared that although Kili had no idea what they were looking for and seemed stubbornly opposed to understanding the idea of secret door, Bilbo had the sharpest eyes of all of them, and Fili the next, so that they would still outmatch any other party and were sure to find it first. Bilbo privately thought that it would be found first by those who happened to be looking in the right place, but he was pleased to see Fili's spirit apparently fully restored, and so they set out with enthusiasm and a sense of healthy competition that was undampened by logic or common sense. In the end, though, it was Kili who found it, which just went to show that sometimes those who aren't looking have a better chance than those who are.

They had been following what seemed to be a rough path that climbed up the mountainside, losing it from time to time, and then finding it again, and sure that it must lead somewhere because sometimes it seemed to have steps cut into it, and sheep and goats do not make such things. Eventually they found themselves on a narrow ledge, and Bilbo and Fili took to examining the rock wall behind them, pressing their hands in likely-looking spots and calling to each other from time to time. They were so occupied in their task that neither of them noticed that Kili had disappeared for some minutes, and when Bilbo heard Fili shout his brother's name with something like panic in his tone, and looked up to see the ledge empty of anyone but Fili, he could think only of the steep drop that fell away dizzyingly below them and could hardly breathe past the narrowing of his throat.

But then Kili appeared, as if from nowhere. One moment the ledge was empty, and the next he was there, looking curiously towards his brother.

"I'm find door," he said, as if he was announcing he was hungry.

"What?" said Fili. "No you haven't. You don't even know what we're looking for!"

Kili shrugged and pointed, and Bilbo and Fili slipped after him through a narrow crack in the rock into a strange sort of bay that was open to the sky above and walled in by a towering cliff on the opposite side from the crack. The cliff here was smooth and flat, as though it had been made by a master mason, and although there were no obvious cracks, no lintel or keyhole or hinges, it was clear that this could not be anything other than what they had been searching for.

"Door," Kili said, pointing at it. "Yes?"

"Yes," whispered Fili, staring at it in some amazement. "Yes, that is the door."

"Door, good," said Kili. "What do now?"

Fili turned to him with a slow smile.

"Now we find Thorin," he said.

To be quite honest, there was not really room for thirteen dwarves and a hobbit in the little bay that held the door. Nonetheless, none of them were willing to be left out, except Kili, and neither Fili nor Thorin would have agreed to leaving him out on the ledge, so there they all were, hammering, scraping, even trying to hook their fingernails into imagined cracks in the rock to pull the door open. Bilbo, who had taken his turn at the face but quickly decided it was useless, found himself sitting beside Kili, who was watching proceedings with a look of some bemusement.

"Why dwarfs want open door?" he asked.

"Because they want to get inside the mountain," Bilbo said.

"Why?" Kili asked. "Dark in mountain. No sky."

"Because that is where dwarves are supposed to be," Bilbo said. "Dwarves belong inside mountains."

Kili fell silent at that, watching the dwarves again, but now he looked more troubled than bemused.

And then the sun began to sink, and the dwarves' spirits with it. It was dim and rather damp in the little bay, so that the rocks were crawling with snails, but the setting sun now shone through the narrow crack, lighting up at least a small strip of the wall and throwing the rest into deeper shadow. Dwarves are able to see in the dark much better than hobbits or even many elves, and so they were not deterred by this, but nonetheless, they knew that time was quickly running out, and they were beginning to despair.

Bilbo found himself standing by the crack, watching the sun as it descended into a bank of cloud that swathed the horizon. A great groan went up from the dwarves as the bay fell entirely into shadow, and Bilbo felt his heart twist in his chest, for they had come so very far, and he could not believe it would all be for nothing. He stared disconsolately at the horizon, but found himself distracted by a tapping sound that was less rhythmic than the hammers and chisels of the dwarves. He turned to see a thrush, its eye bright and seeming to stare straight at Bilbo, tapping a snail against a rock that stood in the middle of the bay.

"When the thrush knocks," muttered Bilbo, and at that moment, the sun slipped down below the fiery clouds, just a sliver of it visible between them and the horizon, and a single ray of red light fell through the crack in the rock onto the door.

There was a great crack, like a tree branch breaking under the weight of snow, and a chunk of rock fell from the face where the red light shone, revealing a hole that seemed clearly shaped to fit a key.

Balin got to his feet. "Thorin," he said, in an awed voice, and then, "Thorin! The key!"

Thorin lunged forward, then, and the dwarves parted before him, and he drew the key from the chain he wore always around his neck and fitted it to the lock. He glanced back at them all and then took the key in both hands, turning it with all his might.

And it turned.

There was a click, and a quiet creak, and then a section of the rock swung inwards, leaving a black opening into the mountainside.

"The door," said Thorin, as if he did not believe what he was seeing.

"Well, I'm blowed," Bilbo said to Bofur, who was standing beside him. "There is a door after all!"

"Aye, I'm as surprised as you are," Bofur said. "To be honest, I was sure we'd all have been eaten by orcs by now."

Bilbo stared at him in astonishment, and Bofur gave him a sunny smile.

"We'll probably all be incinerated by the dragon by this time tomorrow, mind," he said, "but we've done really well to get this far."

Bilbo shook his head and moved forward to stand beside Fili, who was pulling his brother up from the ground. Thorin had already stepped into the opening, and the other dwarves were following behind, talking in hushed voices and gazing at the opening in wonder. Soon, only Fili, Kili and Bilbo were left in the bay, standing before the yawning blackness of the mountain.

"We're home, my brother," Fili breathed. "We've finally made it."

"I'm not know home," Kili said. "What mean?"

Fili looked at him and considered a moment. "I'm not sure I know, either," he said, and took his brother's arm. "Let's find out."