I am intrigued by this passage from the Wikipedia article "Samarkand".

Some Fictish writer could surely build a story on this foundation.

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The city of Samarkand is famous for being the subject of an Uzbek tale called "The Rendezvous at Samarkand." It was recounted by a 12th-century Persian storyteller and mystic, Farid Al-Din Attar. In a legendary Baghdad, ruled by a powerful caliph, lived a young, healthy vizier. He seemed to have his whole life ahead of him. One day, he went to the city market, incognito, as he often did. Amidst the stalls of the spice merchants, he encountered a skeletal woman, who turned around as he passed and reached out to him. The vizier, a wise man, immediately recognized death. Terrified by what he saw, he begged his caliph to let him flee Baghdad, explaining that death was here and wanted to take him. His only hope was to immediately saddle his fastest horse and gallop off far from the city. The caliph therefore granted him permission to leave and asked him where he would be going. The vizier replies that to escape death, he is going to Samarkand, the desert city, on the edge of the kingdom, on the borders of Asia and the Middle East, thinking he will be safe there, far from the death that lurks in Baghdad! However, the caliph also decides to go to the market to check for the presence of death. He recognizes her very quickly and addresses her without fear, asking her the meaning of the gesture she made towards the vizier. "It was only a gesture of surprise..." replies death "Because I saw him in Baghdad while I must take him tonight in Samarkand..." This tale illustrates the inevitability of human destiny in the face of death.