The Ranger ➵ Kili Durin

PART 2: CHAPTER 13

Bilbo couldn't understand how they missed it. He stood in front of what should have been the secret door into the mountain, flabbergasted. With the map in his hand, he kept repeating the words that they followed, looking around in the hopes that something might appear.

"Bilbo, please," Elvira sighed. She was the only one that had stayed up there with him. "It's dark now, we missed it."

"Hang on," he muttered, going through the words once more. "The last light... the last light," he kept muttering, looking up at the sky now. At that moment, clouds began to dissipate and the first rays of moon beams shone down from the sky. He looked at it wonderingly, and elvira looked at him much the same way before looking up at the sky as well. When she saw what was beginning to happen, she stood from her seat on a rock, mouth agape. For the light from the moon started to culminate, illuminating the clearing they stood in until a moon beam from the sky illuminated what looked to be a keyhole in the rock. Bilbo gasped in surprise, and Elvira couldn't believe her eyes.

"Guys! The keyhole," Bilbo exclaimed. "Come back! Come back, we found the keyhole! It's the light of the moon, the last moon of Autumn!" he shouted.

"Bilbo, oh my God," Elvira stood, stunned. Had it not been for the perseverance of that little Hobbit, they all would have turned around and went home. "Where's the key?" she asked, frantic now.

"The key, oh the key-" Bilbo muttered. "It was here, it was right here-" they both spun around, looking at the ground where Thorin had dropped it.

Elvira heard the sound before she saw it, but she felt her foot graze upon what she thought was a rock, until she heard the clattering sound of metal. She knew she had kicked the key, and she was ready to go diving after it, wherever it went, but a great big boot came down on the string it was tied to before the key could go careening off the edge of the cliff.

Thorin reached down slowly and picked it up, and both Elvira and Bilbo sighed in relief. The rest of the company had made their way back up as well, and were now staring at Thorin, Bilbo, and Elvira a newfound hope in their eyes.

The king under the mountain slowly slid the key into the hole and turned it. He put his hands on the wall and, with muscles flexing, gave the stone one great heave of force, the seams of a door appearing that were invisible moments before. The door opened, a dark tunnel leading down into the mountain standing before them. Awe overtook them.

"Erebor," Thorin breathed. Balin, tears in his eyes, stepped forward and choked trying to say Thorin's name. They put their hands upon each other's shoulders and looked down at the tunnel, before Thorin stepped into the mountain that was once his home and now, his kingdom.

"I know these walls," he whispered, reminiscing. "These walls, this stone. You remember it, Balin. Chambers filled with golden light." Thorin's eyes glaze over, lost in a memory as his hands caress the stone.

"Aye, I remember," Balin said. The rest of the company began to reverently enter the mountain. Elvira can't help but feel as though she has been here before, feeling the same reverence and memory that the rest of them felt. It was a strange feeling, no doubt.

A stone carving stood above a doorway, and Nori pointed to it silently. The rest turn to look: the Throne of Erebor carved in stone, the Arkenstone sitting above it, emanating bright rays of a powerful light in all directions. There is an inscription carved in Khuzdul above it, and Gloin read it aloud:

"Herein lies the seventh kingdom of Durin's folk. May the heart of the mountain unite all dwarves in defense of this home."

"What's that above the throne?" Bilbo asked, pointing at the carving.