*You guys know we talked about doing a shared world.  We went with a whole continent so that Dave can have his jungle and I can have my big city with diners.  We’re working on a contract which we should have in a week or two (and yes, we’ll post it for your enlightenment although we haven’t decided yet if anyone not in the group can play.  OTOH if it’s very successful, we’ll inevitably enlarge it.  For now, here’s the eighth chapter of Elf Blood, book one of Risen Atlantis. And for now it is ©Sarah A. Hoyt 2013.  All rights reserved.  Do not copy, distribute or otherwise disseminate without the author’s name, and a link to this page.  You do not have the right to alter it.  You do not have the right to claim it as yours. For permission to do anything other than quote it for review or recommendation purposes, email Goldportpress@gmail.com. This is a work of fiction, all coincidence between it and real people place or events is assuredly imaginary.*

For previous chapters, see here. and for the last one, here

I was about to say that all police stations look alike.  This is not precisely true.  For one the only other police station I knew was in Mudhole.

Mind you, I knew it very well indeed. Whenever something happened the police didn’t like, they didn’t look to their own children and grandchildren, the scions of the human community – if you can call scions to the children of farmers and small-crafters.  And they would never – being rather fond of continuing to draw breath – look to the elven hill.  Maybe some police chiefs did at one time, but those clearly didn’t stick around to continue the tradition, and it’s unlikely they moved elsewhere, too.  At least elsewhere in this world.

So, when something of a magical nature went wrong in Mudhole, I made a suspect line of one.

From when I was about six and not absolutely sure why they were questioning me, to the final questioning session that drove me out of Mudhole by making it clear what my father’s people were planning, I’d been in that station hundreds of times.

The thing is the room in which I was questioned in Mudhole was almost wildly cheerful.  I’d sometimes suspected they’d painted it bright yellow and brought in colorful furniture because I was so young when they’d first questioned me over milk and cookies, to make the interrogation go down easier.

Yes, as an adult I could see the magic baffles on the ceiling and feel the blessed mortar on the walls, supposed to keep other people outside the room safe, should I lose my mind and explode in malevolent magic.

But none of this really meant anything when I was six, and after that it had the charm of familiarity.  Why, it was almost comfortable.

Also, only two of the times I’d been hauled in had I had anything to do with the incident in question.  And I had never turned Ms. Frutari into a frog.  I’d just made her believe she was a frog and made everyone else think she was a frog.  So, when the police chief asked me if I had turned her into a frog, I could answer no, and not all of their truth-sounding could find me at fault.  The same, with the thing with Bobby Randall.  By then I knew the routine of interrogation so well, I could lie with impunity and no one would ever know.

So I wasn’t in the least nervous in the station.  Also they’d gotten used to perfunctory questioning before letting me go.

But this city police station was all wrong.  First of all it was not the one-story, five-room building of my childhood, but a skyscraper, right in downtown Pomae.  And as far as I could tell all of it was police.  I found myself, getting out of the car at the door and looking up at the floors disappearing into the gloom of the early morning sky, wondering what they could possibly do with all those floors.  Oh, yes, surely, there would be more crime in Pomae than in Mudhole, but then this couldn’t be the only police station.

Then I noticed the holy symbols in a friese across the top of the first floor, probably repeated all the way down, and the magic-potency built into the cement of the building, and I started thinking that whoever had built this had been more than anything else scared to death of high magic users.

Not that I could blame them.  After all, high magic users, with more inherent magic than mere humans could command were mostly creatures related to those who’d either hid among humans for centuries – influencing human history with total lack of compunction – or they were the more dangerous sort who had weathered the time of the sinking and remained in Pomae, unaccustomed to human interference, and frankly not thinking of humans as quite the same sentient creatures as themselves.  Those were my father’s people, and everyone should always be cautious around them.

But it didn’t bode well for their interrogating me.

They’d separated me from Ardghal, which was actually a relief, as I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the elf – half elf? If he was telling the truth, which was a big if – prince.  But I suppose they thought they were keeping accomplices from conspiring.

They were also a little rough in pulling me from the car and marching me down the hallway, one policeman on either side.  Both policemen were clearly magic users.  I could feel and smell the power coming off them.  Human, but quite strong.  And they clearly were not having any compunctions about making me upset at them.  Maybe their building protected them that much.

The interrogation room was a windowless place in the second subbasement, and the walls were either made of lead or of something that looked like lead and had the same magic-dampening capabilities.  My interrogators were enclosed in a sort of shiny power-capsule.  I’d never seen it, but I could tell that it was a magic shield of high effectiveness, so even if I let all my power loose in this room, they’d survive.  And of course it wouldn’t go outside the room.

They looked like normal policemen other than that immaterial magic shield, which shone like dust motes in the sun all around them.

I pulled away from the hands of the policemen who’d brought me there, and sat down in the folding chair that stood in front of the desk behind which the two protected-policemen sat.

I barely heard the door close behind me.  I was trying to think.

Look, in Pomae things were different than in Mudhole.  In Mudhole the only person to object to my frequent detentions for interrogation was my mother, and mother tried not to raise to many waves, given her status and that she hoped they’d be kind to me.

In Pomae… there were enough half-elves, even if most of them were low status, to raise a stink over arbitrary detention.  They couldn’t simply have brought me in because I was a half elf.  Oh, okay, they could, but they’d have to be crazier than I could believe.  No.

Once the newspapers got hold of it, and the local citizens, they could get in real trouble for bringing someone in just because she had elf blood.

So, they had to have some reason to really suspect I’d been involved with Ardghal in the killing of his wife.  But what could it be?  What beyond elf-blood and the fact I’d been at the party.

One of the policemen had a blunt bulldog like face that wasn’t actually unpleasant, but betrayed a certain “likeableness” in its lines.  He looked at me and sighed.  “You should have told us the truth at the party, instead of a tissue of lies.”

Since what I’d told them was the absolute truth, I could do nothing but stare at them.

He sighed again, “When did your affair with the elf prince start?  And why kill his wife?  Wasn’t the role of mistress enough?”

“I didn’t have an affair with Ardghal,” I said.  “I met him for the first time—“

The sigh was more obvious and more pitying.  “Look, you probably could get out with a claim he used undue magical influence on you.  He probably did.  He’s far more powerful than you are, and he has the hill behind him.  You’ll get off with a time in a rest home and magic detox place.  Come on.  Tell us the truth.”

“I told you the truth,” I said.  “I met Ardghal Flairti this week, when he—”

The bulldog-like head shook.  His friend, who had remained quiet, smoking a cigarette, shook his head.  “Show her, Jim.”

Jim, if that was Bulldog’s name, reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope.  He handed it to me gingerly.  His shield crackled as our fingers came near touching.

The envelope was white and gave signs of yellowing, as though it were old.  The pictures inside looked old too.  Not old, old, but like they’d been kept for a year or more.

I stared at them, uncomprehending.

“They were in the dead woman’s dresser,” the man said.  “Under the underwear.  Human or elf, that’s always where women keep things.”

I only half heard.  The pictures were clearly of myself and Ardghal.  And they showed us in various instances of embrace.  I felt for magical modifications and could feel none.  But neither could I explain them.