Clarity of Purpose, Chapter 30
Title: Clarity of Purpose, Chap. 30
Chapter Summary: Thorin and Bilbo reach the Cracks of Doom, and the rest of the Fellowship makes a stand at the Black Gate of Mordor.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo, Arwen, Gimli, Dis, Legolas, Thrain, Gollum
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2800
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
A hush fell across the battlefield as the Witch-King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, stood atop the Black Gate and gazed out at the armies of the West. Beside him his mount fanned its great scaly wings, and a stench of corruption and decay seemed to waft over the field. Behind him, in Mordor, the armies of Sauron broke into hoarse, baying cries and pressed forward, pushing the ragged folk of Nurn back. “Hold fast!” Daon cried, but it was of no use: shrieks of despair and terror lifted into the air as the starving, desperate people broke ranks and began to crumble.
And then a shriek of rage and defiance sliced through the air, and a slender figure in ill-fitting armor ran forward. Muranu of Manishtashnu seized a stone from the ground, throwing it at the Black Gate, though it fell pitifully short of even the base. “Curse you!” he screamed up at the Ringwraith, his voice nearly lost in the tumult. “May your soul be consumed by the Void for what you have done to my people!”
“Muranu!” Dís started to run toward him, Arwen right behind her.
The Ringwraith tilted his head as if in idle curiosity. “Young fool,” he said, and all shuddered as the voice seemed to crawl into their minds. “I am not fated to be harmed by the likes of you.” He gestured casually, and the fell beast at his side spread its wings and soared from the gate, striking down as a hawk would strike a rabbit.
It reached him before the two women could, snatching him up and into the air without a sound, then hurling him back down to the earth with vicious contempt.
Dís’s cry of horror and shock rang out over the battlefield as the boy’s crumpled body was tossed to the ground nearly at her feet. Throwing herself to her knees, she gathered him in her arms, but his heart was pierced through by cruel claws and his eyes were already empty. The Nazgûl’s mount landed on the ground in front of her and advanced, its snaky neck outstretched and its jaws dripping, but she paid it no heed, still staring down at the broken form in her arms.
It was Arwen who stepped forward, sword in hand, and stood between them.
The beast snapped at her, knocking her to the side and driving the breath from her body, but she took a firm grip on her blade and swung. Her blow sliced through the scaly neck, severing it cleanly, and its scream of fury was cut off into a gurgling choke.
The body of the beast flopped and flailed on the ground, and the blade dropped from Arwen’s nerveless fingers as she fell to one knee, gasping. Now the Ringwraith’s attention was fixed entirely on them; she glared up at him with all the defiance and hatred in her soul. “Dís!” she called to the woman behind her. “Dís, we must--”
Suddenly sensing absence at her back, she whirled to look.
Her sword was gone, as was Dís.
Legolas stared up at the figure on the Black Gate, the cruel taunting words of the Witch-King still ringing in his mind. Something was happening on the ground in front of the gate, but it was impossible to see what. He saw the unnatural mount soar downward, did not see it arise. “Gimli,” he said, grabbing his companion’s shoulder. “We must open the Gate.”
“That’s all well and good,” grumbled the dwarf, “But they use mountain trolls to leverage it open! Where are we going to get something as strong as a mountain troll--especially something willing to help us?”
Legolas looked around almost wildly. Then his face lit up. “There,” he said, pointing.
Gimli followed the line of his finger, and although his eyes were nowhere near as keen as the elves’, he could easily make out the towering gray form of Shala, the olifaunt, wading across the battlefield and tossing orcs left and right, her trainer on her back shouting orders.
“Oh no,” said Gimli. “no, I don’t like horses, lad, and you want me to--no!” But it was too late; Legolas had already set off across the plain, shooting orcs as he went.
Gimli sighed. Then he raised his voice and cried ”Khazâd ai-mênu!,” and began to run forward after his friend.
The walls around them were smooth as glass, as though molten stone had been used to polish them. Red light flickered across the slick surface in oily streaks that seemed to beckon them onward. Thorin kept one hand on Bilbo’s shoulder, and the other on the throwing axe at his belt--he had an intuition that whatever awaited them, fighting in close quarters would not be ideal. Bilbo’s breathing was hoarse and labored, and Thorin tightened his hand on his shoulder. “Just a little more, my heart,” he said. “Just a little more and you shall return to the Shire, to the cool breezes and gentle sunlight of your home. We are almost there, my brave one, my star sapphire, my green leaf in the desert.” He kept a soothing patter of words going, hardly hearing what he was saying, but nearly sighed with relief when Bilbo reached up and clasped his hand, as if to reassure him in turn.
Together they emerged into the heart of Orodruin, where Sauron forged the One Ring in greed and malice so very long ago.
The heat was a tangible thing, waves that slapped at their faces and tossed their hair, and the roar of churning lava below them made it hard to think. Together, step by step, they made their way to where a promontory of rock jutted out above the heart of the volcano.
Bilbo stopped short of the spur and fumbled with the chain around his neck with hands that seemed to have gone clumsy and unwilling. His hair was matted with sweat, his eyes ringed with red. He pulled the chain over his head, and the Ring rested in the hollow of his hand, golden and perfect and oddly vulnerable.
Bilbo looked up at Thorin and his eyes were wide and desperate. “Please,” he said, and he held out his hand. “Can you not destroy it for me? For all of us?”
Thorin could hear what almost sounded like a pulse of pure power emanate from the gold circle, heavy and sweet and beguiling. Take me, claim me, make me yours, it whispered, Be the strong son and king you need to be. He shuddered, remembering long nights of emptiness in which he poured his pain into the greedy chasm of the Ring’s lies, and shook his head. “No,” he said over the roar of the mountain, “Bilbo, I am not strong enough. I have already given in once. The Ring must be yours to destroy.”
The anguish in Bilbo’s eyes almost undid him, but then Bilbo closed his hand around the Ring and nodded, his throat working. Unclasping the chain, he let the length of gold slip to the ground to pool unnoticed. For a long moment, he looked at the Ring in his hand, and then he started to walk to the edge of the cliff, to where the molten heart of the mountain seethed below.
“Hail and well met at last, my son,” said a familiar voice from the entrance of the passageway, and Bilbo froze, looking back.
Thráin, once King Under the Mountain, stood there. He was clad in heavy mail of a sinuous Eastern design, and in one gauntleted hand he held a chain. The chain ended at a pair of shackles bound around Gollum’s wrists. Gollum--thinner and more wizened than the last time Thorin had seen him--yearned toward the Ring, his whole body an arc of thwarted desire. “Precious,” Thorin saw him whisper, the sound drowned out by the sound of the volcano.
And so they met at last, these two pairs, like a reflection in a warped mirror: one bound by hatred and chains and obsession; one by love and hope and determination.
“Dís!” Arwen ran after the dwarf, but Dís had gotten a head start, and once a dwarf gets started running nothing at all can stop them. Orcs fell left and right by her hand, as if she were mowing down field flowers with a scythe, as she made her way straight for the western turret of the Black Gate.
By the time Arwen made the turret, Dís was already halfway up the staircase that wound up it. Bits of armor and orc rained down from above as Arwen climbed, her heart pounding as the miasma of the Nazgûl grew ever stronger. The fear that assailed her seemed to affect her friend not at all, though. Arwen staggered on until finally she emerged on the top of the Black Gate.
To the north, she could see the armies of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, could see Mithrandir exhorting them to stand firm, to not panic as the horrific aura of the Witch-King pierced their souls. To the south were the people of Nurn, crumbling and fleeing, being slaughtered with no hope of aid. And before her--
Dís had ripped her helmet off, and her long black hair streamed out in the wind, the single white streak in it shining like a star. She held up Arwen’s sword in silence and advanced on the Witch-King as if walking through water, step by painful step.
The leader of the Ringwaiths looked at her and saw her beard. He laughed, a cold sound that made the armies of the West quail and tremble. “Another mortal fool,” he said. “Come to be killed.” He brandished his morning star, twirling it above his head effortlessly. ”I shall make a lesson of you as well.”
Dís said nothing, but chuckled low in her throat and continued forward.
The great spiked ball of the morning star crashed down onto the black metal of the gate with a tortured scream--but Dís had dodged to the side at the last second. There was a cut on her cheek, trickling blood down her face. She stepped forward again.
The Ringwraith wrenched the morning star up again, and the air shrieked at its passing. He started to whip it forward once more--
And at its zenith an arrow struck the heavy metal gauntlet of the Witch-King, and the cruel spiked sphere flew wide.
The Witch-King glared at Arwen, standing with her quiver empty at last, proud and stern. Then he turned his attention back to Dís. “You cannot defeat me,” he said again, a voice like stone on ice. “I cannot be hurt by--”
Her teeth bared, Dís lunged forward the last few steps and transfixed him with the elvish blade.
The Ringwaith screamed, a high and eerie sound that buffeted the armies like a thunderclap, throwing Dís backwards and sending her tumbling across the Black Gate. There was a tormented twisting in the air, and then the heavy armor fell to the earth, empty of any animating force.
In the distance, a sudden beam of scarlet light seemed to pierce the gloom, focusing on the gate and the slain Ringwraith: Sauron’s furious attention fixed upon the two figures remaining there.
Staggering under its oppressive light, Arwen ran forward to gather Dís in her arms. “Dís,” she said, and then: “Sister. You have prevailed.” Below them there was faint cheering from the armies of Gondor, Rohan, and Saynshar, but Arwen had a care only for the woman lying in her arms. She smoothed back Dís’s hair from her cold forehead. It was all white as snow now, the black seared from it in that terrible thunderclap. “Do not leave me, my friend,” she said, and bent her head and wept.
There was a grating sound from below them, a trumpeting call of triumph, and the Black Gate began to swing open. Arwen held her friend close, cradling her against the jarring movement, and heard the armies of the Free Peoples break into a joyous cheer, heard the drums and chants start as they prepared to enter Mordor and join battle.
At the motion, Dís stirred in her arms and coughed weakly. “I won,” she whispered.
Arwen took a careful breath. “Yes, sister. You defeated the Lord of the Nazgûl.”
“Of course I did,” Dis said, and smiled faintly. “But I mean I won...the count.”
Arwen laughed, and the tears of sorrow on her face were mixed with tears of joy. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, you won.”
“It has been a long time, son,” said Thráin, stepping forward into the heart of Mount Doom. Bilbo stood frozen, the Ring in the palm of his hand, but Thráin seemed to have eyes only for his son.
“A long time indeed, Thráin,” said Thorin. “Long since you chained my grandfather to his bed like a dog and usurped the Raven Crown for your brow. Long since I drove you from Erebor. And even longer since the dragon-sickness corrupted your heart against your people.”
“The dragon-sickness?” Thráin laughed, short and sharp. “You still believe in that myth, that phantasm? My mind is clear, my thinking unmarred.”
“Your heart is not,” said Thorin, resting his hand above his own. “How long did it take the corruption to creep into your soul? Perhaps--” He swallowed hard, “--perhaps it would have been better if the true dragon had destroyed Erebor, so many years ago. Perhaps, away from the mountain, away from the gold, you could have been the ruler we deserved.”
“A ruler with no kingdom is pointless indeed,” Thráin said. “As well you know.” And to Thorin’s shock he smiled, and it was the smile Thorin remembered from his earliest days, open and warm. “I am proud of you, my son.”
“Pr--” Thorin felt his mouth shape the word, but no sound came out.
“Of course! I realize now how very wrong I was about you. I felt in your youth that you were too bookish, that you lacked ambition. That you were weak and soft. But this!” He threw his arms out to take in the entire cavern, filled with golden light. “When I realized you were bound here, everything became clear to me. Such a brilliant plan--to bring the One Ring here, to the place in which it was forged, the very seat of its power, before you use it to confront and overthrow the Lord in Barad-dûr.” He gestured at Bilbo without taking his eyes from Thorin. “And to have the sense to let your servant carry the Ring in your stead, so that he is consumed and you avoid the temptation to wield it too early--” He shook his head in admiration. “Once I thought you had ceded him the power, but now I realize how very clever you are, my son. You are truly an heir I can be proud of.”
He held out his free hand, still clad in its heavy mail, toward Thorin. The other kept a tight grip on the chain that bound Gollum.
“I know that you fear I will try to take the Ring,” Thráin said, “But at this moment I would never dream of robbing you of your glory. You are the true King--not simply of Erebor, but of all the Peoples of Durin. With Sauron toppled, with the Ring in your grasp, you will lead all the dwarves of Middle Earth to a new age of strength and power. Elves and Men alike will learn the true power of our people. It will be glorious, and I wish only to be your counsellor and guide, my son--the triumph is yours and yours alone.”
There was a long, heavy silence that seemed to fill the cavern. Thráin beamed upon his son, the very look of pride and admiration Thorin had always yearned for, waiting for his answer.
Finally, Thorin shook his head. “You were wrong about me so many years ago, Father,” he said. “I was neither weak nor soft. But you are wrong about me now as well.” He looked at Bilbo and smiled, very slightly; unbelievably, even here in the heart of Mount Doom, Bilbo managed a flicker of a smile back. “I have no desire to lead the dwarves to an age of conquest and destruction. I have traveled and fought beside both elves and men, have watched them suffer and sacrifice to rid this world of tyranny. A world with so much beauty in it, so much that is gentle and kind.”
He turned his gaze back from Bilbo’s red-rimmed eyes back to his father, planting his feet more firmly against the rock, and raised his voice so it would carry clearly over the blast of flame and heat that filled the air.
“Bilbo and I have come here together for one purpose and one purpose only, Father--to destroy the One Ring.”
Chapter Summary: Thorin and Bilbo reach the Cracks of Doom, and the rest of the Fellowship makes a stand at the Black Gate of Mordor.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo, Arwen, Gimli, Dis, Legolas, Thrain, Gollum
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2800
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
A hush fell across the battlefield as the Witch-King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, stood atop the Black Gate and gazed out at the armies of the West. Beside him his mount fanned its great scaly wings, and a stench of corruption and decay seemed to waft over the field. Behind him, in Mordor, the armies of Sauron broke into hoarse, baying cries and pressed forward, pushing the ragged folk of Nurn back. “Hold fast!” Daon cried, but it was of no use: shrieks of despair and terror lifted into the air as the starving, desperate people broke ranks and began to crumble.
And then a shriek of rage and defiance sliced through the air, and a slender figure in ill-fitting armor ran forward. Muranu of Manishtashnu seized a stone from the ground, throwing it at the Black Gate, though it fell pitifully short of even the base. “Curse you!” he screamed up at the Ringwraith, his voice nearly lost in the tumult. “May your soul be consumed by the Void for what you have done to my people!”
“Muranu!” Dís started to run toward him, Arwen right behind her.
The Ringwraith tilted his head as if in idle curiosity. “Young fool,” he said, and all shuddered as the voice seemed to crawl into their minds. “I am not fated to be harmed by the likes of you.” He gestured casually, and the fell beast at his side spread its wings and soared from the gate, striking down as a hawk would strike a rabbit.
It reached him before the two women could, snatching him up and into the air without a sound, then hurling him back down to the earth with vicious contempt.
Dís’s cry of horror and shock rang out over the battlefield as the boy’s crumpled body was tossed to the ground nearly at her feet. Throwing herself to her knees, she gathered him in her arms, but his heart was pierced through by cruel claws and his eyes were already empty. The Nazgûl’s mount landed on the ground in front of her and advanced, its snaky neck outstretched and its jaws dripping, but she paid it no heed, still staring down at the broken form in her arms.
It was Arwen who stepped forward, sword in hand, and stood between them.
The beast snapped at her, knocking her to the side and driving the breath from her body, but she took a firm grip on her blade and swung. Her blow sliced through the scaly neck, severing it cleanly, and its scream of fury was cut off into a gurgling choke.
The body of the beast flopped and flailed on the ground, and the blade dropped from Arwen’s nerveless fingers as she fell to one knee, gasping. Now the Ringwraith’s attention was fixed entirely on them; she glared up at him with all the defiance and hatred in her soul. “Dís!” she called to the woman behind her. “Dís, we must--”
Suddenly sensing absence at her back, she whirled to look.
Her sword was gone, as was Dís.
Legolas stared up at the figure on the Black Gate, the cruel taunting words of the Witch-King still ringing in his mind. Something was happening on the ground in front of the gate, but it was impossible to see what. He saw the unnatural mount soar downward, did not see it arise. “Gimli,” he said, grabbing his companion’s shoulder. “We must open the Gate.”
“That’s all well and good,” grumbled the dwarf, “But they use mountain trolls to leverage it open! Where are we going to get something as strong as a mountain troll--especially something willing to help us?”
Legolas looked around almost wildly. Then his face lit up. “There,” he said, pointing.
Gimli followed the line of his finger, and although his eyes were nowhere near as keen as the elves’, he could easily make out the towering gray form of Shala, the olifaunt, wading across the battlefield and tossing orcs left and right, her trainer on her back shouting orders.
“Oh no,” said Gimli. “no, I don’t like horses, lad, and you want me to--no!” But it was too late; Legolas had already set off across the plain, shooting orcs as he went.
Gimli sighed. Then he raised his voice and cried ”Khazâd ai-mênu!,” and began to run forward after his friend.
The walls around them were smooth as glass, as though molten stone had been used to polish them. Red light flickered across the slick surface in oily streaks that seemed to beckon them onward. Thorin kept one hand on Bilbo’s shoulder, and the other on the throwing axe at his belt--he had an intuition that whatever awaited them, fighting in close quarters would not be ideal. Bilbo’s breathing was hoarse and labored, and Thorin tightened his hand on his shoulder. “Just a little more, my heart,” he said. “Just a little more and you shall return to the Shire, to the cool breezes and gentle sunlight of your home. We are almost there, my brave one, my star sapphire, my green leaf in the desert.” He kept a soothing patter of words going, hardly hearing what he was saying, but nearly sighed with relief when Bilbo reached up and clasped his hand, as if to reassure him in turn.
Together they emerged into the heart of Orodruin, where Sauron forged the One Ring in greed and malice so very long ago.
The heat was a tangible thing, waves that slapped at their faces and tossed their hair, and the roar of churning lava below them made it hard to think. Together, step by step, they made their way to where a promontory of rock jutted out above the heart of the volcano.
Bilbo stopped short of the spur and fumbled with the chain around his neck with hands that seemed to have gone clumsy and unwilling. His hair was matted with sweat, his eyes ringed with red. He pulled the chain over his head, and the Ring rested in the hollow of his hand, golden and perfect and oddly vulnerable.
Bilbo looked up at Thorin and his eyes were wide and desperate. “Please,” he said, and he held out his hand. “Can you not destroy it for me? For all of us?”
Thorin could hear what almost sounded like a pulse of pure power emanate from the gold circle, heavy and sweet and beguiling. Take me, claim me, make me yours, it whispered, Be the strong son and king you need to be. He shuddered, remembering long nights of emptiness in which he poured his pain into the greedy chasm of the Ring’s lies, and shook his head. “No,” he said over the roar of the mountain, “Bilbo, I am not strong enough. I have already given in once. The Ring must be yours to destroy.”
The anguish in Bilbo’s eyes almost undid him, but then Bilbo closed his hand around the Ring and nodded, his throat working. Unclasping the chain, he let the length of gold slip to the ground to pool unnoticed. For a long moment, he looked at the Ring in his hand, and then he started to walk to the edge of the cliff, to where the molten heart of the mountain seethed below.
“Hail and well met at last, my son,” said a familiar voice from the entrance of the passageway, and Bilbo froze, looking back.
Thráin, once King Under the Mountain, stood there. He was clad in heavy mail of a sinuous Eastern design, and in one gauntleted hand he held a chain. The chain ended at a pair of shackles bound around Gollum’s wrists. Gollum--thinner and more wizened than the last time Thorin had seen him--yearned toward the Ring, his whole body an arc of thwarted desire. “Precious,” Thorin saw him whisper, the sound drowned out by the sound of the volcano.
And so they met at last, these two pairs, like a reflection in a warped mirror: one bound by hatred and chains and obsession; one by love and hope and determination.
“Dís!” Arwen ran after the dwarf, but Dís had gotten a head start, and once a dwarf gets started running nothing at all can stop them. Orcs fell left and right by her hand, as if she were mowing down field flowers with a scythe, as she made her way straight for the western turret of the Black Gate.
By the time Arwen made the turret, Dís was already halfway up the staircase that wound up it. Bits of armor and orc rained down from above as Arwen climbed, her heart pounding as the miasma of the Nazgûl grew ever stronger. The fear that assailed her seemed to affect her friend not at all, though. Arwen staggered on until finally she emerged on the top of the Black Gate.
To the north, she could see the armies of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, could see Mithrandir exhorting them to stand firm, to not panic as the horrific aura of the Witch-King pierced their souls. To the south were the people of Nurn, crumbling and fleeing, being slaughtered with no hope of aid. And before her--
Dís had ripped her helmet off, and her long black hair streamed out in the wind, the single white streak in it shining like a star. She held up Arwen’s sword in silence and advanced on the Witch-King as if walking through water, step by painful step.
The leader of the Ringwaiths looked at her and saw her beard. He laughed, a cold sound that made the armies of the West quail and tremble. “Another mortal fool,” he said. “Come to be killed.” He brandished his morning star, twirling it above his head effortlessly. ”I shall make a lesson of you as well.”
Dís said nothing, but chuckled low in her throat and continued forward.
The great spiked ball of the morning star crashed down onto the black metal of the gate with a tortured scream--but Dís had dodged to the side at the last second. There was a cut on her cheek, trickling blood down her face. She stepped forward again.
The Ringwraith wrenched the morning star up again, and the air shrieked at its passing. He started to whip it forward once more--
And at its zenith an arrow struck the heavy metal gauntlet of the Witch-King, and the cruel spiked sphere flew wide.
The Witch-King glared at Arwen, standing with her quiver empty at last, proud and stern. Then he turned his attention back to Dís. “You cannot defeat me,” he said again, a voice like stone on ice. “I cannot be hurt by--”
Her teeth bared, Dís lunged forward the last few steps and transfixed him with the elvish blade.
The Ringwaith screamed, a high and eerie sound that buffeted the armies like a thunderclap, throwing Dís backwards and sending her tumbling across the Black Gate. There was a tormented twisting in the air, and then the heavy armor fell to the earth, empty of any animating force.
In the distance, a sudden beam of scarlet light seemed to pierce the gloom, focusing on the gate and the slain Ringwraith: Sauron’s furious attention fixed upon the two figures remaining there.
Staggering under its oppressive light, Arwen ran forward to gather Dís in her arms. “Dís,” she said, and then: “Sister. You have prevailed.” Below them there was faint cheering from the armies of Gondor, Rohan, and Saynshar, but Arwen had a care only for the woman lying in her arms. She smoothed back Dís’s hair from her cold forehead. It was all white as snow now, the black seared from it in that terrible thunderclap. “Do not leave me, my friend,” she said, and bent her head and wept.
There was a grating sound from below them, a trumpeting call of triumph, and the Black Gate began to swing open. Arwen held her friend close, cradling her against the jarring movement, and heard the armies of the Free Peoples break into a joyous cheer, heard the drums and chants start as they prepared to enter Mordor and join battle.
At the motion, Dís stirred in her arms and coughed weakly. “I won,” she whispered.
Arwen took a careful breath. “Yes, sister. You defeated the Lord of the Nazgûl.”
“Of course I did,” Dis said, and smiled faintly. “But I mean I won...the count.”
Arwen laughed, and the tears of sorrow on her face were mixed with tears of joy. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, you won.”
“It has been a long time, son,” said Thráin, stepping forward into the heart of Mount Doom. Bilbo stood frozen, the Ring in the palm of his hand, but Thráin seemed to have eyes only for his son.
“A long time indeed, Thráin,” said Thorin. “Long since you chained my grandfather to his bed like a dog and usurped the Raven Crown for your brow. Long since I drove you from Erebor. And even longer since the dragon-sickness corrupted your heart against your people.”
“The dragon-sickness?” Thráin laughed, short and sharp. “You still believe in that myth, that phantasm? My mind is clear, my thinking unmarred.”
“Your heart is not,” said Thorin, resting his hand above his own. “How long did it take the corruption to creep into your soul? Perhaps--” He swallowed hard, “--perhaps it would have been better if the true dragon had destroyed Erebor, so many years ago. Perhaps, away from the mountain, away from the gold, you could have been the ruler we deserved.”
“A ruler with no kingdom is pointless indeed,” Thráin said. “As well you know.” And to Thorin’s shock he smiled, and it was the smile Thorin remembered from his earliest days, open and warm. “I am proud of you, my son.”
“Pr--” Thorin felt his mouth shape the word, but no sound came out.
“Of course! I realize now how very wrong I was about you. I felt in your youth that you were too bookish, that you lacked ambition. That you were weak and soft. But this!” He threw his arms out to take in the entire cavern, filled with golden light. “When I realized you were bound here, everything became clear to me. Such a brilliant plan--to bring the One Ring here, to the place in which it was forged, the very seat of its power, before you use it to confront and overthrow the Lord in Barad-dûr.” He gestured at Bilbo without taking his eyes from Thorin. “And to have the sense to let your servant carry the Ring in your stead, so that he is consumed and you avoid the temptation to wield it too early--” He shook his head in admiration. “Once I thought you had ceded him the power, but now I realize how very clever you are, my son. You are truly an heir I can be proud of.”
He held out his free hand, still clad in its heavy mail, toward Thorin. The other kept a tight grip on the chain that bound Gollum.
“I know that you fear I will try to take the Ring,” Thráin said, “But at this moment I would never dream of robbing you of your glory. You are the true King--not simply of Erebor, but of all the Peoples of Durin. With Sauron toppled, with the Ring in your grasp, you will lead all the dwarves of Middle Earth to a new age of strength and power. Elves and Men alike will learn the true power of our people. It will be glorious, and I wish only to be your counsellor and guide, my son--the triumph is yours and yours alone.”
There was a long, heavy silence that seemed to fill the cavern. Thráin beamed upon his son, the very look of pride and admiration Thorin had always yearned for, waiting for his answer.
Finally, Thorin shook his head. “You were wrong about me so many years ago, Father,” he said. “I was neither weak nor soft. But you are wrong about me now as well.” He looked at Bilbo and smiled, very slightly; unbelievably, even here in the heart of Mount Doom, Bilbo managed a flicker of a smile back. “I have no desire to lead the dwarves to an age of conquest and destruction. I have traveled and fought beside both elves and men, have watched them suffer and sacrifice to rid this world of tyranny. A world with so much beauty in it, so much that is gentle and kind.”
He turned his gaze back from Bilbo’s red-rimmed eyes back to his father, planting his feet more firmly against the rock, and raised his voice so it would carry clearly over the blast of flame and heat that filled the air.
“Bilbo and I have come here together for one purpose and one purpose only, Father--to destroy the One Ring.”