The Oblivion Hex
RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 4
Escape!
Noah hadn’t time to mourn Crowe's betrayal. The flames which paused the Mummy now smoldered smoke and ash. Acid pain stung his forehead, each throb returning vision by fractions. With the mummy gargantuan in his sight, Noah shot another rope of dazzling fire.
The mummy was prepared. It’s outstretched palm absorbed the flames without even a fizzle. Noah’s spell looked like a candle sealed in a jar, choked to blackness by its own smoky breath. The hieroglyphs heralded Deximose as an unparalleled Dark Priest “ the ease of his counter-jinxes proved the assessment true. Noah was doubtful he knew any magic this beast couldn’t flick with bloody fingers. He also knew he had precious few moments before the creature shifted its infinite store of dark magic from defense to offense.
The mummy bellowed as Noah dodged its fist and scurried to the pedestal at center. Sandstone was a cool oasis against Noah’s skin. Mummies…mummies…Noah searched his mind for any information. Damn Crowe for going turncoat “ his Dark Arts expertise would have snipped the mummy’s Achilles Heel and vanquished it with ease.
Noah felt the pedestal shift at his back, rising like a feather cupped against a summer breeze. He turned and spied the creature beckoning it from the floor with a curling finger. The mummy closed its fist and the sandstone exploded into a firework of pebbles and sand. Noah circled his wand before him as writhing arcs of acid green and deepest black shot at him. The hexes ricocheted from Noah’s shield and exploded onto walls and floor. Debris rained as a curse like summer lightning refracted through Noah’s shield. Heat boiled his thigh as the hex zipped past.
His vision cleared, Noah saw the mummy’s wrappings had burned away. Gashes spotted its body. Deximose’s last breaths among the living had indeed been unhappy, overtaken and murdered by a bloodthirsty mob loyal to their Pharaoh. Black crusts of millennial blood shone like dried ink against blue skin.
Among the smaller wounds, a fist-sized hole in the monster’s bosom gave Noah hope. Inside this rotten cave sat an earthenware box, gilded with hieroglyphs. Noah could have laughed. Joy washed tight fear from his muscles, hope swelling his chest. This clay pot unlocked the tumblers of a lesson years past, lectured during his and Crowe’s apprenticeship before the war.
“The only practical way to kill a proper mummy,” Mad-Eye Moody’s snarl echoed in Noah’s brain. “is to stomp the monster’s heart to oblivion. Y’see - a Mummy’s heart is it’s line to the living world. Usually preserved an’ kept in some golden vase, smash the heart and your mummy drops like slack wire.”
Even with hexes flashing like fireworks, evil heat roasting his face, Noah felt feather light. With a cry he leapt at the beast. Before the monster could react Noah plunged his hand into its leathery chest. Dead muscles and bone fragments nipped flesh from Noah’s knuckles. The beast clawed Noah’s arms and face. His fingers closed around clay as lengths of burning string cinched around Noah’s wrists and neck. With the last threads of strength in his body Noah heaved the pot toward the wall.
Noah saw only a glimpse of the beating heart as it emerged from shattered earthenware polygons. It was deep crimson, coughing spurts of blood-syrup. Noah cast his spell and like a camera flash the heart blossomed in a rose of flame. Instantly immolated, ash like diamonds glittered down to the crypt floor, indistinguishable from sand. The mummy, its bones jelly, fell like a puppet with strings cut. White silence flooded the room, in some ways worse than the screams they replaced. The monster lay like a toddler’s doll discarded in some foreign sandbox.
Waving his wand, Noah’s throbbing pain ebbed to a dull ache. He was no medic, but it would do. At least the bleeding stopped. Crowe had a good head start. Noah shuddered to think what would happen if he didn’t intercept Crowe before Crowe reached Harry Potter. A spell murmured, Noah hovered from the crypt and ran back through the maze as fast as aching feet could manage.
Racing through the maze behind his swiveling wand seemed to dissolve the precarious line separating in- from -finite. Noah imagined some Titan staring over this shifting labyrinth, chuckling to see Noah wind circuits through a sideways eight. His feet burned (even in comfortable Muggle cross-trainers), his arms turned to lead and acid rasped his lungs. This is to say nothing of the hexes lilting through his system where Deximose’s mummy had stung.
CO2 washing his vision black, Noah finally found himself in the yawning cavern of the main atrium. Two rows of glimmering immortals heralded the exit ahead. Allowing himself only a breath to catch oxygen, Noah ran to the statutes. Socrates was still awake, annoyance pinching his face.
“Do you... know of the... Oblivion Hex?” Noah asked between gulping breaths.
Socrates pointed his nose to the unseen ceiling. With a flourish he tossed folds of toga over his shoulder. “Do you not know the great thinker to whom you speak?”
Noah, assuming this to be a Socratic ‘yes,’ fired another question.
“Is there a counter hex? A defense?” It was more command than question, terse and quick.
The golden philosopher discarded his air of self-importance. His face lowered from the heavens, all lines solemn straight. “Which is more abhorrent: the annihilation of self, or the annihilation of another?”
Noah squinted at the statue. “The Oblivion Hex can be reflected back on the caster?”
Socrates bowed his shaking head. “Is this not a near impossibility? To cast another into oblivion without a the smallest grain of hesitation? How dark, indeed is the seed of Deximose’s withered heart?”
Noah’s stomach cramped to hear Socrates confirm his fear. The only defense would be to reflect Oblivion back on Crowe. Murmuring a half-hearted “thanks” as he ran to the exit, Noah wasn’t certain it was an action he could possibly take. To undo any life is abhorrent - who knows how far the web of a single life reaches? How could he possibly cast Crowe to Oblivion? The burden squeezing Noah’s chest only clenched tighter as the thought rolled in his mind.
He sprinted through the emerald door, an invisible hand guiding him to the Muggle world. It would be the first shivers of dawn in London. Noah hoped against hope for a spare moment to avert tragedy. Before his cross-trainers even squeaked the floor, Noah was twisting, that loud pop! flinging him to a decision he wasn’t sure he could make.
The Oblivion Hex by RA Westwood
Chapter Notes: Noah faces off against a powerful mummy, only to be thrust into a much worse situation.