The Book of Ronin: White lines

There it was again, "ratatata ratata tata ta", it was definitely coming from the other side of the valley. The unmistakable sound of small arms gunfire. Shaomian had just found another crystal of life in the never ending, magnificent valleys of the Himalayas. He was quickly becoming very addicted to the hunt for these since his first encounter with one. He did not know how to rationalise the amazing energy these crystals seemed to radiate. His whole being seemed to be boosted and he partially guessed now that he was hooked on these things much like a drug addict.

Quickly he made his way over to the stream that was meandering lazily in the spring morning. He was sure he had heard the cutting blades of an attack helicopter rising above the sound of the gunfire. There was some better cover closer to the far side of the stream and a good vantage point for whatever was heading here from the adjoining valley.

As he settled down for what he calculated may be a wait of a few hours he cast his mind back to what the old monk had told him about the crystals.

"Yes these crystals of life are very powerful, so much so that you can quickly lose your rational sense and your mind would react purely on an emotional basis. From the outside your behaviour would very much approximate to that of paranoid schizophrenia. Yet from your point of view you would very much believe you were in control. Fortunately most human minds burn out from the experience before they can do much harm to others. Others who have been trained in the ways of mindfulness can last longer. And there are the rare individuals who are born being able to cope with this power. One such fellow studied in the same monastery as I did many moons ago. A remarkable student but cursed with a coldness that left him isolated from others."

Shaomian somehow knew that the monk was talking about Rabban although the monk knew him by another name. "Yes this fellow who you know as 'Rabban' was very much skilled in the ways of combat by the time he left our monastery. Unfortunately he did not want to continue learning our philosophy once he had discovered the existence of the crystals. He left suddenly one night with a copy of the map after murdering our librarian to get it."