The Barbarian wandered where the desert swallowed roads and men alike, a restless traveler drawn from tavern to tavern by lamplight and music, drinking deep, watching belly dancers turn fire and silk into temptation, and bedding them before dawn sent him back into the sands asking nothing of tomorrow. One night, beneath a smoke-dark ceiling and fading drums, an old man sat across from him, his eyes pale and his voice dry as bone, and spoke of the Obsidian Desert—a place beyond the last well, where the stone drinks the sun, the wind whispers stolen names, and evil itself is said to kneel, a land so cursed that even kings restrain their armies and call it myth. The Barbarian laughed at first, but the sound withered in his throat, for when the old man vanished without being seen, the drink lost its taste, the music felt distant, and at dawn the Barbarian turned from the warmth of the tavern toward the black shimmer on the horizon, where fear itself dared not linger.
