A larger group of servants brought in four more pallets of Kathaldi. While I was having them stand the fresh batch of prisoners up Finril arrived, looking unhappy.

“Finril, it’s good to see you!” I lied heartily. “What brings you here?”

“Mage Curly And Oily Hair told me what happened.” He didn’t call him that, of course, he used his name, but I’ll always be bad at names and he’ll always be mage Curly And Oily Hair to me.

“Yes, he was quite right that I ought to interrogate them. However, to do that I need them to be able to move their eyes just a bit. Your young mage couldn’t manage that, but I imagine that you can. Will you assist me?”

Finril didn’t look happy about it but he nodded. “I think that would be for the best.”

“Excellent! Then please wake them up and allow them to move their eyes. But nothing else. I don’t want them killing themselves.” Not before I get to do it, I thought. But even while crazy I knew better than to say that where Finril could hear it.

The old elf waved a hand toward the Kathaldi. “It is done.” He didn’t even look at me as he spoke. He was obviously still not happy. Not at all.

I walked over to the Kathaldi and stood in between them. It was a little like being surrounded by flesh statues. Flesh statues, ugh. It was definitely weird. “Look, this is how things are going to work. You are all being held immobile by my mage friend here. All you can move is your eyes. That’s so you don’t kill yourselves. I’m going to ask some questions and you will all answer me by moving your eyes up and down for yes and side to side for no. Do you all understand?” I waited and checked all of their eyes for any movement but, of course, there wasn’t any.

“Fine, we’ll do this the hard way. I looked over the four Kathaldi to find the toughest looking one. They were all Mindolan, or at least had changed their skin color to grey. They all had brown or black hair. The were all scary looking, but that was probably at least partly because I knew they were Kathaldi. I picked the biggest of the four and let the same knife I had used recently on the first prisoners slide into my hand from its wrist sheathe. I slowly approached Biggie, as I had silently named him, and held the blade in front of his face. “All I’m asking is if you understood how this will work. Use your eyes to acknowledge that you understand, and I won’t have to use this knife on your face.” Nothing. It was as if his eyes hadn’t been freed up by Finril. I turned to the mage. “Are you positive they can move their eyes?”

He sighed loudly and disapprovingly. “Unfortunately, yes.”

I nodded then started carving a line from Biggie’s temple to his chin. It wasn’t a scratch either, I went pretty deep, for a face. “Now do you understand?” Still nothing. I cut a matching line on the other side of his face. He still kept his eyes straight forward. Ignoring me. His pupils had seemed to enlarge for a moment, but I decided that even if they had it didn’t count as an answer. I went to each of the other three and asked them if they understood, while explaining that more bad stuff was going to happen to Biggie’s face if they didn’t acknowledge me. None of them did.

I returned to Biggie and cut off his nose. His face was a bloody mess now.

“I think we’ve learned all we can from them, Lord S’Vig.” Finril said firmly.

“I disagree.” That’s when I scooped out his eyes and started juggling them in front of the Kathaldi opposite from Biggie. Actually, I tried to juggle them, but I don’t actually know how to juggle, and they were bloody and I still had my knife in my right hand so I ended up kind of tossing them onto the other Kathaldi’s face. They fell to the floor and I started laughing. Not chuckling but some real belly laughs. I was starting to have trouble breathing. I felt like I was about to pass out. The knife slipped from my hand and I sensed Venzik approaching to help me. Then everything went black.