The Gates of Troy (Lopez Time Book 3)

by Phillip S. Power

  Dumas filled the silence that came then, his voice cultured sounding. Adult, even if he was young.

  “We also get to host a man from their world. I think the idea is that we can ask him anything, no matter how embarrassing, since he doesn’t have an army or great powers. He also won’t take insult at our strange ways?” There was a look at Troy then.

  “Exactly. It occurred to me that we might need something like that, to speed things up. Being polite is good, of course but…” He didn’t know how to explain what he wanted to get across.

  Patricia did.

  “Except that we need to learn about each other, and fast. That means someone has to stand in front, naked and bent over, hoping that he’s just in for a good time and not having his legs cut off. This Jim must be most brave, given that.”

  “Or clueless. He isn’t bad, as for bravery. He agreed to do the job, anyway. I’ll get with him directly, once I get home. I should…” He glanced around, then sighed. Not far from the front door of the place which was painted a bright green with red trim, there were healing amulets. Timon went and picked one up, then carried it back, holding it out to him.

  “If you need more than this, make them, of course?”

  The lady winced.

  “Ouch. Those are really hard to copy. Most can’t do it. Even the builders and mages have trouble with them.” She looked like the suggestion was an insult.

  Timon just slapped him on the back. Not hard or anything.

  “Troy can do it. His first copy, to show he could do anything at all, was a full magical palace. From memory. On stone, with a sigil that glowed. This one, in fact.” The rock was pulled from Tim’s side pocket.

  The woman took it, and held it in her hand for a long time. She didn't give it back, Troy noticed. Then, if she wanted a magical house, she could keep it.

  “You did mention that. I’d kind of thought you were kidding.”

  “Nope. First that, then a full novel build. That was given away to the man who acted as his first life shaping subject. As payment for his time. That worked. Baron first, Karal Toyev. The one who was here earlier? It worked, perfectly.”

  There was a device pushed into his hand then, by Timon.

  “This is Harmony. Everything is free, if you need it. Of course, that means you need to pay for it later, in work. Training people from here should count? I have a speaking device or two for you as well.”

  The man rushed to the back, his wife moving off to inspect the bridge.

  “The sitting room of your capital house, Dumas? That’s… Very exacting. We could do it with the transport system…”

  The kid bowed then.

  “This is direct effect, Aunt Trice. Starting from nothing, Builder Lopez created this for us to pass through, in a mere moment. Going from the Earth to the Moon, instantly, without seeming effort of note. Taking the idea of this place from the field of Uncle Tim… I think he might be able to go anywhere. Even to do this between worlds.”

  Troy shook his head then.

  “No. I won’t do that. It would be too easy for it to be misused that way. Node travel seems to prevent the passage of disease, in part. I don’t think this would. The air from here is passing to Earth and back. You can feel a bit of a breeze, if you pay attention? We have to be careful with that.”

  There was an impressed look then. Followed by an almost flirty grin.

  “You might also bring in an army.”

  “Yep. Which I refuse to do. We have enough of that kind of thing already. We don’t need to invent new ways to do it.”

  The other two there bowed to him.

  As if it made sense, not to make the world a worse place.

  Chapter fifteen

  The wild thing about going from world to world wasn’t just in the differences. It was in the distortions you felt on coming back. The world he’d just been in was, in many ways, a better, cleaner version of his own. Basic things operated differently there, though.

  Time was a big one, being eight times faster. That meant, in the day he’d spent at the nice house in the strangely tan city, learning his new tricks, it had been slightly less than four hours. There were other things though, that took place. Things like the air tasting different.

  In that other world, it was like breathing in plants and something else that was hard to define. A thing that tasted slightly of ozone. It was probably that the air itself just had more oxygen in it. Once he got back home and picked up Kind from the bookstore, to take him out to dinner, there was more of a chemical sense to things. Everywhere he went.

  A dark sense, of things that needed to be in the ground. Like coal and oil. It was a constant thing, but one that he didn’t notice most of the time. Even with vampire senses. It was only when it had been taken away for a while that he noticed it, on his return.

  It was rude of him but Troy decided to make some phone calls. Mundane, average ones, for once. He really hadn’t for a long time. He should have just gotten to work. The thing there was that he’d been doing a lot of that over the last years. Enough so it was becoming apparent that Troy was going to need to change soon. Maybe get a place in the mountains and just take some time off, or something else. That he was thinking that just as a new business was starting spoke of some pretty dark things. He knew that.

  Still, making certain calls, right then, just felt right. It was, he knew on a level that would be hard to shake off, just the right thing to do. The needed thing. Even given that he nearly didn’t bother. Something inside of him tried to stop it from happening. For some, very strange, reason.

  Julio’s number wasn’t in his phone, since they didn’t talk really but it wasn’t as if he didn't have it memorized. Instead of picking up after a few rings, there was nothing. Just a beeping and being told that the number wasn’t in service.

  “Okay, that’s odd. Julio has had the same number for ten years. Longer than that. Since my parents got him his phone at fifteen. Let me… He probably just got a new plan or something.” The easy thing to do was, of course, to call his parents.

  The same thing happened, when he put their number in.

  Troy didn’t feel anything in particular on the surface. Something inside of him warred though, in the moment. Part tried to make him forget about it. The rest… That part knew it was time. As if that wasn’t filled with ominous overtones. It was, he was willing to bet, that some god or other was fucking with him. If his family had been hurt…

  Then things were going to get very bad, for whoever had harmed them.

  “Um… Right. I need to go and check this out. Do you think that someone would hurt them? To get at me?”

  He was speaking to Kind, as if he’d know the answer to what anyone else would do.

  The former god shook his head.

  “I think not, Troy. They would gain only your ire by doing that. Indeed, it would push you, a being capable of kindness and reason, to take extreme actions. So, this is something else. Perhaps we should visit with your people?”

  That meant making a bridge, which was oddly hard to do. His mind kept fleeing from the location on the far end. It was almost as if he was fighting himself on the idea, trying to prevent finding what was on the other end.

  When it was opened, which took more power than it normally did, being blocked for some reason, his childhood home was… gone.

  Blinking at it, Troy had to slam his emotions into place. Kind stepped through behind him, and looked at the open field. Grass was growing but instead of being the lawn that was supposed to be there… Nothing was. Just a few trees. A field with some early flowers in it. Off in the distance, not all that far away from the lot his old house was supposed to be on, there were other houses.

  The same ones that he had in his memory. The yellow house that Mrs. Hampson, the elderly widow lived in. Three down the block from that was the old brick and stone place that he and Julio had claimed was haunted when they were little.

  “It… My old house… It should be here. Right here. Is t
his some kind of illusion? Can you see through it? It should be white. Not that big. Just… You know, a house.”

  He tried to think, to see through it, whatever was hiding his parents from him. The time distortion or light bending. Nothing was there. Not for him. Looking at Kind got him to walk forward, his right hand going out. A wave of light moved from the hand, and bounced back, making waves in the air. It was subtle, but the golden light was there, physically.

  “No, Troy Lopez. This is as it seems. There was never a dwelling here, in all of history. That would tell us that the error here is not outside of you but rather inside. Something or someone has put the image of this place inside your being. I… To be honest, I cannot find any tampering that way. We need to find someone better with skills of the mind than I for this. At the same time, this may be a trick to distract you from your current task.” There was a long look, then a soft grimace. “You would know more of that than I. My people aren’t direct, but we are not of the tricksters.”

  Troy had to force himself to focus then.

  “Right. Either someone stole my family… Or… or…” That one wasn’t coming to him. As if it were being blocked. It was right there. The idea that he needed wasn’t far from him or anything, it was close, and essential. Inside his mind at that very moment. Hidden from view, totally.

  Kind nodded.

  “Or they never existed. It is also possible that you hid them, and made yourself forget, so that they could not be used against you? In which case they will be safe and protected. If they never existed, while troubling to you, they would also be safe, not being real. Only their theft need concern us at this moment. If that did not happen, then it does not matter.” The nerdy ex-god didn’t move a lot then, as if he feared setting him off. That was the right thing to do, if he were working with a vampire.

  Troy closed his eyes, still trying to look through the trick or veil that was being used to keep him from seeing what was there. When he opened them again, it was the same. Exactly, without even a hint that there was anything being kept from him. The feeling of knowing what was going on but not being able to reach it was still there as well.

  “I need to do something, Kind. What that is… I don’t think I know that. Not consciously. I might be gone for a while. Something is wrong, in my head and it relates to this. I… Don’t have a lot of time to do this. It could be a trick… It has to be one. My family… They’re real. I need to get at what it’s all about.” He actually used a fist to hit himself in the head. It didn’t hurt. Even if it was loud enough to make a solid noise.

  He nodded then. A big thing. Something that had his melon bobbing around like he had a spring in his neck. It had to look goofy. Troy just didn’t care. He couldn’t, at the moment.

  “There’s a block in my head. A wall that… I can’t reach past it. I should be able to. I should be able to break anything that was put there, by anyone. I’m kind of a master of concentration. I need time to think and work on this. I can’t do that here. I… Can I get you home? To my place in Lincoln? Food… Right… I… Sorry. Let me…”

  He had to take down the bridge, then, rather easily, he was able to build one that went back to the book store. There was food there and his best friend.

  Troy came out in the node room. No one else was there, of course. Naturally.

  “I’m going into the void, to see if I can do anything with this thing inside of me… I’ll be back. I don’t know how long it will take. Hours. Years? Hang here, or get Zack to take you to my place. He’ll do it. I…” It was odd, but Troy had never even asked Kind if he knew how to walk the lines. That was a greater demon thing. All of them could do it. Still, he’d been assuming that Enki was from a time before that was a known thing. There was no reason to think that.

  Unfortunately, he just couldn’t make himself care enough to say the words out loud. His family, all of it, was missing. His brother with his loud mouth and bad sense of humor. His father, with his eye patch and big gray beard. His mother… Nothing came to him about her at all.

  Troy walked into the void, twisting his being and space itself to do it. That was just a matter of thinking about it right, using a deep concept that was nearly automatic now, after all the practice he’d had.

  Once safely inside nothing, it took a while for him to truly calm himself. His brain kept trying to turn back toward his family. His little brother, who’d always been a mega-pain in the rump but was at heart a good guy. The kind that got high behind the high school with his friends but who would also help you clean the garage on the weekend when it was your turn, so that you could both go out in the evening.

  His father, who was hard working and filled with mindless clichés. Always talking about turning the car around on trips, if they got too noisy or fought in the back seat. The man that had taught him to play baseball in the back yard, when he was eight.

  Troy’s mother…

  That got him to blink. He focused, very hard, and realized something. He knew that he had a mom, of course, and that her name was… Nothing came.

  Nothing.

  The only name he had for any them was Julio. His pain in the butt brother. Except, when he tried to push inside of that idea, there was only blankness. No middle name. No memories of the kid breaking his Nintendo when they were kids. No face to go along with the name. Rather, one tried to come, but it was different. Bigger. White…

  Like his father was.

  He nearly panicked. Not over the idea that he might secretly be white, either. A lot of Hispanic people were, after all. There was the fact that doing that would lead to him dissolving into nothingness which got him to come back to himself firmly enough to be useful. For a very long time, at least a hundred years, he sat in silence, not thinking at all.

  Only when he was calm and accepting that his family was gone, did he address the idea again.

  Slowly, he found the block inside his head. It was smooth and seamless. Perfect, in many ways. Lying just underneath what he was. Troy Lopez. He pried at it. Wrenched the small tab on the top side to side. Finally working out how to use the void to dissolve it. That was delicate and nearly caused him to stop being as he tried it. Exposing a single idea, a very powerful one, to nothing was incredibly hard to manage.

  For a long time, it didn’t seem to work at all. Then, slowly, over a time that was probably hundreds of years, it slowly dissolved into what it was supposed to be. Nothing. A thing that wasn’t in his head at all.

  Once that was done, he moved back to the outer world. There was no reason not to, after all.

  Walking out of the node, he felt a bit of shock. It was simpler this time to calm himself. He used his new tricks for that, since they were fresh in his mind. A concept of peace and a trickle of power did the trick.

  Everything around him was different. It looked similar, he had to admit. Except that he knew things about all of it. Not just what had happened to the different parts of the world, but what needed to happen. There were glows in places. In others, pictures popped up over different areas, along with a sense of when the events needed to happen. It was intense. Also very different.

  His heart beat in his chest, and his skin was warm again. Hunger actually stabbed at him. Like it wanted to hate fuck his middle for some reason. It had, after all, been a very long time since he’d eaten solid food. He didn’t need to, of course. Even now, when he was, more or less, himself again.

  Not Troy at all. He was something different than that. A person far older.

  Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes.

  “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish, isn’t it? One so large that our bouillabaisse will feed the world!”

  Zack had come back, in the time he was gone, and was sitting back in his office, eating what looked to be twenty hamburgers. They actually smelled pretty good. Walking that way, he waved at his old friend. That part, interestingly enough, had been real. More so than Troy had thought before.

  “Hey, Zack. Can I have one of those? I’m starving he
re. I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today.” Troy shook his head.

  That was old. From a cartoon that he’d seen before the second world war, if he recalled it correctly. Enough that Zack looked at him strangely.

  “So, you’re an alternate version of Troy? What side are you on? Or are you faking being him? One of the gods that escaped?”

  Zack didn’t get up, or seem to arm himself but Troy could feel the shifting energies around him, getting ready for that kind of thing.

  “No. Only… kind of yes? It’s all here I… I guess I need to start at the end, and work backward. It’s the only way it makes sense. Still, burger me? Don’t leave a hungry ex-vampire hanging?” He held a hand out, which oddly enough got a silver foil and paper wrapped food item passed over.

  Zack casually tried to touch him when he did it but of course, no information passed between them. That was just part of his nature. He could fake it but didn’t bother passing all the information forward. Not now.

  “I went to see my parents. Their phone numbers weren’t working. The old house wasn’t there. It never had been. My little brother was gone, too. So… I went into the void. Play to your strengths, right? I worked out that something was being blocked in my head. I didn’t know what it was. I thought that it might be where they were. Some kind of complex message, or an attempt to take me out. You know, because I’m so awesome that even gods have to cheat to get at me? When I got past it… Everything came back. Everything. It is not just a little bit, either. I… Well, no tricks here, Zack. I’m not Troy Lopez.”

  Zack just looked at him for a while, then gestured at the food.

  “Eat then? You’re human now… That’s interesting. Not exactly.... There’s power running through every part of you. Magic but other things as well. My guess is a trickster.”

  There was munching for a bit, which was fast and kind of hard. When he was finished, his face feeling gross, Zack handed him another burger from the tray. For a while they just sat and ate. He understood that part. It was essential to the balance of things. To Zack, a greater demon, it was a sign that he, the provider of the food was the important one. The one in charge. It didn’t mean that at all but Troy didn't really care about that part of things.