Stone of Erebor
by Primula
Chapter 23: Harvest
By the time Bilbo managed to follow, Dím had pushed the door
open and was already across the dark room, kneeling beside Mizûl
on the bedside floor. The elderly smith lay awkwardly curled on
the floor-rug, his breath rattling and wheezing sporadically in his
throat. The long strip of cloth that had been wrapped around the
replacement stone straggled from his sprawled hands. The spice
box lay open and empty on the rumpled bed just above his head.
Bilbo automatically began to swing the door shut behind him, stumbling
over something on the floor. It rolled away from his foot;
a globe of humble marble, exactly the size the Arkenstone had been.
"He opened it…" choked Dím, chaffing the cold hands he
held. "How, I don't know. I left it locked. He should
have been sleeping."
"Should I get help? Who do I call for?" asked Bilbo, alarmed at the
ashen face of the old dwarf and his obvious frailty.
"No one…"whispered Dím. "I don’t think it would be of any
use now…"
Bilbo could think of no words to say. Numbly he bent and picked
up the marble sphere, a great weariness seeming to settle on his
shoulders. He had never intended for it to lead to this. He stood
hesitantly for a moment, then sat on the edge of the chair by the
yet-warm brazier, turning the stone in his hands. "Can I get
anything…some water…?"
The young dwarf hunched over, tugging one of the blankets the rest of
the way down from the bedding to pull it crookedly over his uncle's
shoulders, but did not answer. Bilbo wondered if he should call
for help anyway, or even if he should just leave, leave them
alone. The old dwarf's worn wooden mallet lay nearby.
On impulse, Bilbo got up and fetched it, placing it in his grasp.
The fingers weakly clutched at it once, before the handle rolled down
the palms, back to the rug. Dím touched it briefly, but
did not try to replace it in that faltering grasp. Instead he
just held his elderly kin to him, smoothing the tangles of his beard
away from his face and whispered to him, almost crooning something in
dwarvish, again and again. As Bilbo stood there helplessly, they
both heard the strange rattling in the throat, saw the old hands and
legs jerking briefly as if in protest of the spirit's departure.
The old smith's eyes opened briefly, without recognition, then rolled
and closed. After a long moment there was one more shallow
breath, then his breath faded away.
Dím was still for a long moment in that silence, knowing - the
only movement where he still absently chaffed one of the limp
hands. "He has gone away then, gone with his treasure," the youth
said in a low voice. "Gone away on his journey at last.
When he sees my father, I hope he will understand why I had to take it,
to put it back, that he will still speak well of me to our
ancestors." He lapsed back into whispers of Dwarvish, then looked
up at Bilbo as if for reassurance.
"We had to put it back," he said.
"Yes," Bilbo agreed gently. "We did."
"I'm glad we did," Dím continued, stroking his hand over the
gray-white hair and beard, straightening tangles from it. "It was well,
for now I have hope that he was able to face our family with honor, not
as a thief."
"Not as a thief…" Bilbo echoed, unsure what to say. The smith's
death had come rather as a shock; they both had known that the
substitute stone would be discovered sooner or later, dwarves in
general were too astute about such things, but he never *really*
expected that the shock of it would be fatal, or that it would happen
so soon. The fact that Dim did not seem to find it all that
surprising was an eye-opener on how deeply it had been affecting
him.
"I do not blame, I do not look for vengeance," Dim was saying in a
monotone, rocking back and forth. "I forfeit all vengeance
to the line of he who was wronged, though it was only in his dotage
that he fell…"
Bilbo was wrung by a surge of pity for the lad. "Now, no need of worry
on that part. It's over and done with, we've set it right."
He awkwardly patted Dím's shoulder where he still sat, cradling
Mizûl's body.
Dim slowly released the still form to the sleeping rugs beneath it, and
pulled the blanket up over the still face. He raised his eyes,
glancing over Bilbo and focusing on the darkness of the wall somewhere
beyond him.
"When the kin of Thorin Oakenshield ask, you may tell them that justice
was served. Justice was served. He was slain by one of the
King's own servants… his own kin have seen to that." Dím's voice
broke as he bowed his head.
"Is there someone who can help?" asked Bilbo, not for the first
time. He was feeling utterly at a loss. "A, er…," he
hesitated, unsure of Dwarven burial procedures and who aided them.
"No, I will care for him. His kin will care for him as is proper." He
met Bilbo's eyes then, speaking in a strangely conversational tone,
quickly, as if it would ward off the unreality of what was happening.
"We have a family tomb, though perhaps you did not know it. Or
perhaps you would think we would not deserve such a thing, but we do
have one…" He looked back down at the still form and grimaced. "The
resting place of our forefathers lies back in the Iron Mountains, far,
far from here. Those mines are now abandoned anyway.. and now we
own one here. It is nearly empty, of course. None rest
there but my father, Dímûl. Now his brother will lie
beside him." He was silent for a long moment, raising his
glinting eyes to the rack of tools that hung upon the wall, now barely
visible in the dimness of the dying brazier fire. "One day
I may lay there myself, hopefully in more honor than those who have
gone before me."
“I believe you will," said Bilbo with sincerity.
The smith's life had seemed to pass away along with his treasure, and
he shivered at the thought, realizing his hand had strayed to his
pocket out of long habit, as if to be sure his own treasure was safe
and with him. He rubbed his hands together until the feeling
passed.
