"It happened in the fourth year of Guangxu in the sign of the dragon of the illustrious succession that the honorable Paladin paid his last respects to his friend, Hui Song." "Mr. Paladin." "A friend would ask you a favor." "I am Jin Ho." "You were my son's friend?" "I had that honor." "I am old but still a woman, and therefore will say my words as simply as that handicap permits." "My son died owing many debts." "He was a most generous man." "Yes." "But with us, the settlement of debts is a sacred duty." "Now my granddaughter, his child, is to be taken." "Taken?" "In payment of those debts." "Still, there is an alternative, or I would not be here now talking to you." "That is true." "The blood of royalty still bruises our veins, Paladin." "For my granddaughter, as you say, there is an alternative." "What would you have me do?" "In five days, a ship bound for China will be off Point Lobos, near Monterey." "If a signal fire is lighted, they will send a boat ashore." "And you want your granddaughter to meet that ship, to return to China to assume the royal station of your family." "Jin Ho, what of you?" "I do know something of the vengeance of the tongs dedicated to Kwan Kung." "I am an old woman." "What matter if I die in my sleep or at the hands of an assassin?" "The police?" "Could even you protect me through every long day and every long night?" "You are a gallant woman." "I promise you that your granddaughter will meet that ship." "So that I will not be too indebted to you." "The Lady of the Five Moons." "She's exquisite." "My son remarked on your excellency of taste." "I'm certain that the Lady will be favored in your possession." "And so it came to pass that this person, Chee Yan, was asked to bring the granddaughter of Jin Ho to the place where Paladin would wait for us." "I am certain this is the place he described." "And yet, it seems somehow different." "Well, then, my preparations have not been in vain." "Kim Sing, this... is Mr. Paladin." ""At the first gate hung the fragile moon of birth" ""and of beauty, and she did enter there."" "From up there, you can see the entire sweep of the bay of Monterey." "The wood for the signal fire is cut, ready." "Then I will take up my watch for the ship." "Chee Yan." "How long?" "Possibly today." "Before morning, for certain." "I need not remind you that the hands of Kwan Kung have talons of steel and they are exceedingly long." "Thank you, Mr. Paladin." "I know." "I have heard my father speak of you, Mr. Paladin." "And yet, to hear the beautiful words of an old legend of my people from your lips." ""The Gate of the Five Moons," hmm?" "Well, Kim Sing, I have on occasion lived beyond the distance that a bullet from this gun will travel." "And that, mind you, despite my card." "Oh, thank you." "That's the first time I've laughed since my father died." "Wherever he listens, he is happier, too." "And still, the association, its assassins do hunt for you." "Every hour we delay, every moment we wait here is to their advantage." "And they do have a thousand eyes, and I have only two." "Perhaps we're already dead, and this place is a corner of Heaven." "I only hope Heaven is as beautiful." "And the angels less formidable." "I'm sure they are." "And... now I think perhaps it's time I took a look along your back trail." "Here." "Here is water to refresh you from your journey." "And here is the seclusion of Heaven" " for your privacy." " Thank you." "Mr. Paladin do you remember the second verse of "The Gates of the Five Moons"?" ""At the second gate," ""the moon loosed the silver darts of knowledge," ""and at the third gate the golden darts of love."" "Thank you." "It is strange that you should use an ancient weapon when you have that one." "Well, this one has the advantage of silence." "Of course." "You are thoughtful." "Yes." "And sad?" "Perhaps a little." "Why?" "Because there are such things as sadness." "What is happiness, Paladin?" "Is it something I can take hold of and feel?" "As-as I feel the warmth of your hand?" "I don't know, Kim Sing." "Perhaps it's only... only the knowledge that you've given joy to another person, that you've filled an hour." "Then it is transient." "Yes." "As power, acquisition and love and beauty and even life itself are transient." "I want to have the silken robes of royalty and feel soft furs against my cheek and look at myself in a crystal mirror framed in gold." "And what of you?" "What of this warm woman?" "Would it be better to sit at the feet of a fat merchant in San Francisco?" "No, of course not." "But you do have a third choice." "Was there only one?" "This time, yes." "We're happy, aren't we?" "Yes." "Then why must we give it up?" "What difference does anything else make if you and I are happy?" "For now, none." "Why do you say "for now"?" "Kim Sing... what of the royal robes, silk, ermine, mirrors edged with gold?" "I don't want them without you." "And would you be happy with me?" "Remember "The Gates of the Five Moons"?" ""At the third gate, love tinged the disc with gold."" "I remember." "Maybe in all this world... in all this universe... for tonight, there's only you and me." "And the moon." "And so it was that even while the melody of love sang in his veins and in his heart," "Paladin, my friend, still thought of me and the cold watch upon the hill." "Chee Yan?" "Thank you." "Chee Yan, what will happen to Kim Sing in China?" "There are those who are friendly to her family." "She may be returned to a high station." "But her family fled that station." "There are also those who are unfriendly to her family." "If you were she?" "My answer is not her answer, Paladin." "In the balancing of heart and duty, what man can say how a woman will read the scales?" "Thank you, Chee Yan." "There will be others." "Such a... strange dream." "Do you know the fable of the man and the butterfly?" "No." "Well, I dreamed I was that man." "And I was on a hillside, and the sun was so bright and so warm that I became sleepy." "And I lay down on the grass and fell asleep, and dreamed that I was a beautiful butterfly, with silken wings, and I could fly." "So I flew to the very top of a hill." "This hill." "And I could see with a new vision." "All the world spread out beneath me." "And I felt a strange, wondrous ecstasy." "And did you waken..." "in that dream?" "Yes." "In my dream, I wakened, and I wasn't..." "I didn't know if I was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who had dreamed he was a man." "And which are we, Kim Sing?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "At last, the long watch was rewarded, and the ship in sight." "But the beating wings of time are fragile, and in their tender motion, who can distinguish what is joy and what is pain?" "The ship is here." "Why have you not lit the fire?" "There are other eyes than those on the ship to see." "Light it." "Then I will." "Kim Sing?" "You've made your decision?" ""At the fourth gate, the jade-white coldness of duty froze her heart."" "Kim Sing?" "Let me light the fire for you." "Paladin." "Here." "Love is like the springtime, isn't it?" "Yes, it is, Kim Sing." "So short a season." "So short a season." "I was not worthy of love." "Or of you." "Paladin?" ""And so..." ""...weeping, for she was a woman," ""the lady passed through the fifth gate," ""beneath the fifth moon which was death."" ""Have gun will travel," reads the card of a man" "A knight without armor in a savage land" "His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind" "Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?"