Or justice, he thought, trying to prettify it.
He found it telling that in ancient Thorass, the words for revenge and justice, charorin and chororin, shared a common linguistic origin, distinguished only by a difference in vowels. That was the fine line between the two concepts-vowels. Fortunately, Cale was not interested in distinguishing them. He cared not at all which of the two he was after, so long as at the end of it the slaadi and the Sojourner ended up dead. And if doing so saved innocents and served Mask-and Cale knew that it would accomplish at least the latter, he just couldn't see how-then so much the better.
He swirled his ale. It felt good to put a name to his anger: chororin, he decided to name it. Justice: for Ren, for Jak, and for himself. He coiled his anger, his need for chororin, into a tight ball and placed it close to his heart. It would be his compass, the new sphere about which his universe would turn until the slaadi and their master were all dead.
He thought of something Riven had said to him back in Selgaunt: You be Mask's tool, Cale. I'll be his weapon.
Cale would be a weapon too. And it was time to sharpen his edge.
He flagged the barmaid as she passed by. She smiled down at him, the tired smile of a tired woman. He removed a platinum coin from his belt pouch and handed it to her. Her eyes went wide.
"Please see to it that a few extra ewers of clean water are placed in my room," he said.
She slipped the coin into her bodice.
"Uh, um ... Of course, sir," she stammered, then bustled off.
Cale took some time to savor the last of his cheese and stew. After gulping down the ale, he headed upstairs to his room to hunt slaad.
He opened the last door on the left to reveal a small room that smelled faintly of stale sweat and the smoke from poor-quality pipeweed. A straw-stuffed mattress sat against one wall under the room's only window, while a chair, chamber pot, and a rickety wooden table stood against the wall to Cale's right. Atop the table sat a ceramic washbasin, three tin ewers of water, and a clay oil lamp. Cloak pegs stuck out of the wall like fingers. Cale doffed his filthy attire. Stripping down to only tunic, vest, breeches, and weapons belt, he hung the rest on the pegs.
Cale crossed the floor and pulled the shutters closed, sealing out most of the sun and the sounds from the street below. But for the grid of light cast on the floor through the shutter slats, darkness cloaked the room. He willed it darker still, and darker it grew.
To fully prepare himself before casting the powerful divination he was contemplating, he donned his mask and sat cross-legged on the floor. He regulated his breathing, offered a prayer to Mask, and focused his mind on one thing: Azriim. In his mind's eye, Cale pictured the slaad in both his natural form and in his half-drow form. He imagined the slaad's mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue, the asymmetry seemingly always present irrespective of the form Azriim took.
Cale let the darkness embrace him, as soft as a feather bed. He pulled out the need for chororin and let it feed his intensity, until the image of Azriim in both of his known forms had burned itself into Cale's brain. When that image felt as sharp in his mind as the edge of a hornblade, he rose and went to the table. Intuitively, he knew what to do.
Cale filled the washbasin with the water from one of the ewers. He whispered a word of power, spiraled his regenerated hand in the dark air, and came away with his fingers enmeshed with a cats-cradle of reified threads of shadow. He held his hand over the basin and let the liquid shadows slip from his fingers to coil in the water. He unsheathed one of his daggers and without even a wince, opened the palm of the same hand. He held the slash over the basin and let his blood drip into the water. In the darkness, the crimson fluid looked black, as black as his thoughts. The wound bled for only a few heartbeats before the regenerative properties of his flesh sealed the gash. With his dagger blade he stirred them all together-water, shadows, and blood-all the while praying to Mask to consecrate the brew.
When the surface of the water became as black and reflective as polished obsidian, he knew the Shadowlord had answered. He stared at the mirrorlike surface of the water, seeing his masked face reflected there, and whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to scry a person or thing that he mentally selected, wherever they were. He imagined Azriim.
Cale's reflection vanished from the surface of the basin. Points of dim ochre light lit the water like distant embers in the deep. Cale felt the intangible threads of magical power scouring Faerun, searching for the slaad, searching. . .
Nothing. The light within the basin dimmed and died.
"Damn it," he softly cursed.
Cale leaned back in the chair and took a breath to calm himself. He knew that a variety of factors could prevent the success of the spell, including magical protections or simple bad luck, so he was not alarmed. Since Azriim couldn't know or suspect that Cale was looking for him, he believed that sooner or later his spell would take.
He cut his palm again and recast the spell. Again no success. He repeated the process again and again, growing more and more frustrated with each attempt, until the basin contained as much of his blood as it did water, and the harsh light leaking through the shutter slats had faded to evening's twilight. Still nothing.
"I'll find you," he promised the slaad-promised himself.
Distantly, Cale recognized the beginnings of obsession, but ignored it and cast the spell again.
Sometime later, hours perhaps, the door to the room opened and Jak entered, bathed, shaved, fed, and bedded. Light streamed in from a lantern in the hallway. Cale blinked in the sudden brightness but barely spared the halfling a glance.
"Cale?" Jak asked in a concerned voice, his silhouette framed in the door by the lantern. "Dark, man! It's pitch in here. Did you even eat?"
"Yes," Cale replied.
"Cale. . ."
"Not now, Jak," Cale replied, focusing on the basin.
He put Jak out of his mind, concentrated, and cast again. The image of the slaad's eyes was imprinted on his brain. He focused ...
There!
In the depths of the basin, a light sparkled. He fixated on it, willed the spell to follow it.
"Cale?" Jak asked.
A wavering image took shape in the water. He saw a gray-skinned, grizzled dwarf walking a torchlit street. Decrepit buildings made of scrap wood lined a packed earth road. At first, Cale thought the spell might have gone awry, but when the dwarf turned and Cale saw the perfect teeth and the eyes-one blue and one brown-he knew his spell had located Azriim. He tried to contain his exultation and keep the spell focused.
He couldn't hear the sounds around Azriim, but he could see the surroundings. Shadowy buildings, creatures, and people moved in and out of the spell's field of vision. Most of the people and creatures appeared to be running. Several were shouting and pointing.
"Where are Riven and Mags?" Cale asked the halfling.
"Next door," Jak answered.
"Get them. And all three of you get in here," Cale said. "Right now. I've found them."
Jak took Cale's meaning right way. The halfling ran to the room next door and pounded on the door. Cale heard muffled voices and boot stomps. Magadon, Jak, and Riven piled into his room, shutting the door behind them.
"It's pitch black in here," Magadon said. "What are you doing, Cale?"
"Scrying for the slaadi," Jak answered. "He's got them."
"You've got them?" Magadon asked, excitement in his voice.
Cale nodded and beckoned them over, saying, "Look for yourself."