Usem, patrolling outside the emperor’s chambers, heard bare feet shuffling across the stones toward him.

He turned and found the emperor behind him, dressed in only a thin tunic, his eyes wild, his skin clammy.

Augustus blinked, as though looking at a bright light.

“You will live a long life, she told me,” he whispered. “Now she means to take it. She smells of lemons and fire. Her perfume is the same as it ever was, and I smell it in Rome.”

“She is not in the house,” Usem said, taking pity on the man, but the emperor shook his head frantically, as though trying to rid himself of an insect.

“Tell me a story,” he asked the Psylli. “Tell me something to make the night come.”

Usem laughed, a dry sound of curious pleasure, something that calmed the emperor vaguely. If the man still laughed, all could not be lost.

“It is night already,” the Psylli told him. “It is hours until dawn.”

“It is not night in my mind,” the emperor replied.

“I will tell you a story,” Usem said. “But there is a price.”

“There is always a price,” the emperor said wearily. “I will pay it.”

Augustus was now convinced that any fee owed to the Psylli and his tribe would never need to be paid, at least not by him. His death would no doubt occur long before he paid his debts, and Usem wanted peace. Who could promise such a thing in a world where creatures like Cleopatra existed?

The two walked back to the emperor’s room, where Augustus lay down again and Usem settled into a crouch beside his cot. The Psylli began to speak, his voice low and even.

“A young man was in the desert one day, walking over the sand and dreaming of his future. He had reached the age of marriage, but the neighboring tribes would not surrender their daughters. They were afraid of his people, who consorted with poisonous serpents. When other tribes saw the Psylli coming near, they fled, leaving even their camels behind. The Psylli grew rich on abandoned possessions, but their own tribe became smaller and smaller. This boy longed for a bride, but he did not wish to take a woman against her will. He knew that he would have to walk for days to find a tribe who knew nothing of his people, but he swore to himself that he would not return to the snake people until he had found his wife.

“He walked for seven days and six nights, sleeping in caves dug amongst the serpents. On the seventh night, as dawn neared, the boy saw something spinning on the horizon, dancing and throwing light across the darkness. The boy walked closer, wondering.”

The emperor turned his head toward the Psylli and saw the man’s eyes glitter.

“As the young man neared the tornado, he could see a graceful hand twisting in and out of the sand, its long fingers bedecked with sparkling rings, the source of the light he had seen.