I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always...

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan:

[narrating]
I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care. Until one fateful day, I met a beautiful woman who belonged to another man. Her jealous husband complained to the Caliph who made me the ambassador to the land of the Tossuk Vlad - a country far to the north. I was banished from my home and from all that I knew. So, I journeyed by camelback many months into the lands of barbarian peoples - accompanied by Melchisidek, an old friend of my father - through the lands of the Ogus, the Khazars and the Bulgars, into the lands of murderous bandits, called "Tartars", who attack caravans, slaughtering everyone