Chapter Six
Implications of Things Coming

The sun had set and still the horizon yielded nothing to view but bare sand. A chill spilled over the desert as quickly as shadow and had Gojyo and Hakkai tinkering with the knobs of the car's heater. Sanzo was impassive as ever and Menary seemed just as comfortable with the cold in her enchanted attire as she had with the sweltering heat. The moon was a full white orb, crowned by the glitter of stars strewn throughout and inky sky as if the Gods had tipped a jaw of glitter into the air. The heat from the jeep's hood and exhaust came out in tiny silver clouds that made it look like the car was moving on mist.

"I think we should find a place to set down for the night." Hakkai spoke into the quiet, his breath visible.

"A brilliant idea." Menary shifted uncomfortably making Gojyo grunt and move to avoid the jab of her velvet elbow. "I fear I have become a bit cramped. This sort of travel is distinctly tiresome."

"If we drive through the night we'll reach the palace that sooner." Sanzo said stiffly.

"And with the early morning." Menary said with glaring gravity. "When the palace is in full preparation for the day and scouting for intruders. Not only that but we will be exhausted from lack of sleep and that makes for a sloppy rescue. Better to reach the Summer Palace during the afternoon when their attention is turned inwards rather then out." She studied her fingers acquiring a distant air. "But it's your own personal hide, I suppose."

"Sanzo?" Hakkai asked, his question in the single word.

"Do what you want." The monk retorted in an irritant voice.

"Alright Hakuryu." Hakkai's smiling voice spoke as he veered the car towards the ferocious arms of a cactus. "Let's set down for the night."

Hakuryu mewed, flashing white headlines then vibrated to a halt as Hakkai brought the little green jeep to a stop. Menary was the first to dismount, lifting the valise with delicate attention from beneath her seat and setting it down, next to the back tire as she opened the compartment where her bags had been tucked away.

"It's fucking freezing." Gojyo complained from beyond her left shoulder where he lashed out with his heel to tick the lonely little cactus.

"I would be quite happy to share the quilts I brought with you, Master Gojyo." She smiled benignly at his ecstatic expression, allowing him to simmer in his own relief for a moment before adding. "Once you've removed my luggage from the jeep for me."

His face dropped and he chose a glare to replace it, glower even as he shuffled to do her bidding. "Goddamn, women."

"Oh, my." Hakkai chuckled silently, patting Hakuryu's hood fondly. He looked towards Menary, who stood with her fingers perched airily against her chin as she watched the half demon struggle with her burdens. "I think you're getting to him."

She turned her head to offer a warm smile. "It is good for him. Gallantry is a useful trait even if it is forcibly taught."

"I suppose I won't argue."

"I do love an intelligent man." She turned her head to look at Sanzo who stood with his arms crossed staring at her as if he was considering driving all the way back to the town and dumping her back there again. "Would you like some tea, Master Sanzo?"

He gave her a dry look then turned and strode away briskly.

"I suppose not. I do wonder where he plans to stalk off to in the middle of no where."

Hakkai shook his head. "Oh. I'm sure he'll find somewhere." Then left her to help Gojyo when one of the heavier suitcases over toned on his foot, sending him into peals of elaborate and imaginative expletives.


Sleep was a difficultly clung to thing, surrounding him in a fog not quite strong and dense enough to fully immerse his mind but enough that it wasn't fully fixed on consciousness. Sanzo moved across the sand at a natural pace, his arms bare but not feeling the dry, night wind that beat against them. The camp and the sleeping forms of his companions had shrunk as he walked and now they were no more then a pin prick in the distance.

She stood waiting for him, her form luminescent in the moonlight, encased in an ethereal light that made the shadows retreat to form a ring about the hem of the garment that spilled over her frame to the golden sand. Her dark hair was crowned with gold and she watched him with expectant eyes and an amused smile. She lifted her hand, the faintest movement, and sleep slipped away like water through a sieve, leaving him clear headed and finally functional.

"Merciful Goddess." His voice held the faintest undertone of the crankiness of one awoken abruptly from slumber.

"Genjo Sanzo." She purred in response.

"Why did you summon me?"

"So impatient. Did you dislike your stroll through the moonlight?"

He made a sound of impatience. "It's cold as hell and I don't like the scenery."

"You'll have another to enjoy soon enough." She lifted her arm and swept it out.

The air seemed to thicken and become denser till her nails tore a rift in it, splitting the desert scenery. The image hung suspended in the incision made in open air, a palace of dark ivory sandstone. Curling ramparts arched up towards the sky, the building a masterpiece of sweeping architecture that spiraled over and around itself. The highest tower bore a balcony of black marble, a sun crest emblazoned on a black silk tapestry hung over the railings, shifting with the wind.

"This is the Summer Palace." The Goddess said in her velvet voice. "Your destination. Goku is being held here by the Princess Miyohiko, bound to her throne with ensorcelled chains."

"He's alive?"

"He is. But it would be an easy thing to remove him from her. She keeps him with her at almost every moment of the day."

Sanzo's violet eyes narrowed into a glare. "Then exactly how are we supposed to get him out? I don't suppose you're willing to give us some godly help."

"Sanzo, don't tell me your so close minded. I had thought that you yourself had perceived the help I've already sent you."

"I beg your pardon?"

The goddess' eyes moved pass his shoulder and fixed just behind him. Sanzo turned at the redirect of her attention and spat a low curse. Menary stood, barefoot in the sand. Her hair was unbound; golden waves the tumbled just pass her shoulders. Her eyes, like the moon were wide silver circles that glowed with in fractured light. She wore a white dressing gown that made her look pale and sylph light, a china doll lost in the harsh rampage of the desert. Her attention was fixed on the goddess who smiled with amused benevolence at the foreign woman. And then Menary's eyes snapped to meet his accusing violet ones; they condemned her, for gender, for mortality, for weakness, and the delicacy and breakable fragility she seemed to bear leaked from her form almost tangible to be swallowed by the shifting, hungry sand.

"I thought you were a dream." She spoke to the Goddess familiarly, as if this were not their first meeting and Sanzo's eyes narrowed with suspicion. Menary ignored him. "I was meant to help them get their friend back. I find it disconcerting, this habit the divine have of playing with mortal lives."

"Humans seem to over estimate their importance. You all have a purpose, you serve it. That is all."

Menary's lips twitched as the Englishwoman gathered that composed nonchalance about her. It seemed the shock of the Merciful Goddess' presence faded. "So was the mind set of the Grecian pantheon and the Aztec's Talocan court. Do Gods wisp away when the people who serve them stop following blindly, your divinity-ship? Or is when they fall beneath the rule of those who do not hold to their worship? Do Gods have regions and empires they govern singularly? If so I believe I am out of your jurisdiction."

The Merciful Goddess smirked. "No one is out of my jurisdiction, dear."

Menary met her eye for a moment and then she lowered her lashes in the parody of modest deference and dipped in deliberate curtsy that was awkward in the dressing gown. Sanzo perceived that some kind of struggle had just passed but he wasn't sure how or who won. Women. Mortal and Immortal. Unperceivable.

"And what happens when Miyohiko refuses to hand over her prisoner to us?" Sanzo ignored the exchange that had passed.

The Goddess' seemed to shimmer more fully, and her eyes were incandescent with laughter. "You won't be taking Son Goku from her. She's to go with you when you leave Mah Laou."