Prologue

"You'll never see the like of it again, sir," the Bedouin gushed, eager to make a sale. His head bobbed up and down and he gestured grandly to the tapestry as if to a national treasure. "It is said to have been made by the gods themselves."

"Mmm hmm." Trowa Barton's gaze slid across his companion's dusky face, one eyebrow raised in polite disbelief as he glanced at the carpet the man wanted to sell.

Both were inside a hastily erected tent in a small nomadic village, which was simply a kind word for only a few awnings and shelters scrabbled together on the side of a narrow, dusty road at the edge of a nondescript oasis. However, that unremarkable, featureless road led to one of OZ's main thoroughfares - and now there was a persistant rumor that the military organization was going to be active within the next few hours, and was going to strike in that general vicinity. Hearing that, the Arab appeared completely unsurprised that a non-native young man had just appeared out of the desert, wandered over to his tent and asked to see his tapestries – and had shown little interest in any other carpet except that particular one.

The tapestry was richly colored, beautifully woven, and appeared incredibly old – as old as the heavens, as old as the stars, as old as Time itself, claimed the Bedoin, shaking with his own hyperbole.

Trowa gave the ghost of a smile. The idea of agelessness didn't bother him; his practiced eye could see the age and strength of the threads. In fact, that served to authenticate the piece, and while his host didn't understand he actually held the genuine article in his hands, Trowa certainly did.

The difficulty the gundam pilot foresaw was in the tapestry itself. Something was happening to a small area around an anchoring thread that had far reaching implications for the rest of the pattern. He shook his head ruefully. He held an illustrated, unfinished, unravelling version of the Written in his hands, and it was Frustrating. In the Extreme.

"It's not finished," Trowa pointed out, gesturing to that section. A thick, anchoring bronze thread that had other threads wrapped around and trailing from it in the beginning and middle sections of the tapestry, and appeared to have been interwoven into the general pattern, now seemed to have taken on a life of its own. The introduction of two new threads - a fiery red and a pure blue – started to make patterns away from, and then around the bronze. And then ... the unravelling and reweaving began. The tapestry was unfinished.

The man seemed unperterbed. "But that is why, my good sir, I can offer this extraordinary piece to you at this price. My dear, frail grandmother would beat me senseless if she knew how little I was charging someone not in my own family." He leaned forward, leering into Trowa's face, the faint aroma of mint clinging to his breath. "Your women, good sir, could finish that small section. Or I could lend you some of mine for just a few zuzuim more …"

"No, thank you." Trowa studied the man from under the shock of hair trailing across half his cheek; and the Bedouin did not know why, but sudden thoughts of frigid, dark, underground caverns, entirely filled with water, flooded his mind. The total blackness and the soul piercing cold of those alien places were enough to make him draw back from his customer in alarm.

"I'll take it."

Blinking, the Arab pulled his attention back to the young man rising from the bolsters on the floor, money in hand, his one visible eye shining mildly.

"Yes – yes, sir, yes, sir," he babbled, bowing, taking the money before the foreigner changed his mind. "Permit me to wrap it for you, sir, it will just take a moment—"

"No need." Trowa bent and gently rolled the carpet, then hoisted it to his shoulder in one smooth motion. "Thank you," he said, nodding. "I will let others know how honestly you dealt with me. You will find them coming to you to trade."

The Arab beamed at him again. "Oh, good sir, that is always appreciated. Won't you stay for some refreshments? I can have my servents bring some—"

"I am sorry – I cannot stay. Thank you for your hospitality." The gundam pilot looked at him from the entrance of the tent, his body silhouetted against the brightness of the sun; and for a moment, the Bedouin thought there was something else standing there with the young man, something that overshadowed him—something with green, transluscent wings that stretched across the sky—

Choking, the Arab shook his head and looked back at the entrance. Both the vision and the young man were gone.

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