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Addis Ababa
Capital of Ethiopia
2071 Ethiopian Calendar/2079 Gregorian Year
It was the sound of tapping that finally woke her. Narine had been drifting in restless sleep all night, listening to the familiar songs coming from the church, which floated over the rooftops and through the twisting cobblestone streets of Addis Ababa before the dawn of Pagume.
“Narine.” Genet’s voice from the hallway made her open her eyes.
Narine rolled toward her bedside table, tapping on the sleek digital assistant sitting in its charging port. She saw the hour flash against the wall and rubbed her eyes to urge them to wake.
“I’m coming,” she called to Genet.
She threw a heavy woven gebi over her shoulders and slid her feet into slippers before she walked from her bedroom. Then she made her way down the hallway and out the side door of the house.
The old compound in Sidist Kilo was surrounded by a high wall covered in vines, and a spreading mango tree dominated the open space where Genet kept a large vegetable garden.
Genet and her housemaid Samira were preparing the bath, pouring a liter bottle of holy water Genet had retrieved from the church into a washbasin already halfway full.
They waved her over to join Gelile, Genet’s eight-year-old daughter, who was leaning against the compound wall and yawning.
The light was blue grey, and the songs from the church were clearer now. Genet pointed to the wooden stool and Narine unwound her gebi, the cotton wrap that was keeping her warm in the chilled air, handing it to Samira.
Her goddaughter’s eyes were wide and blinking as Narine stripped down and sat on the old wooden stool by the washbasin, her pale skin appearing almost blue in the predawn light.
Narine closed her eyes and tried to relax, but Genet’s murmured prayers, the holy water, and every regret from the previous year washed over her with the bathwater, stealing the breath from her lungs as her body locked from the cold.
The water soaked her hair, her neck, her chest, and her back, flowing from the roots of her dark, curling hair to her feet before sinking into the earth where her family had planted their roots over one hundred years before.
Tears came to Narine’s eyes, but they were hidden by the water Genet poured over her head. I can’t keep going like this.
A flash of memories hit her, one after the other, like waves beating a rocky shore. A thread of blood spreading through the travelers’ pool, her mother’s hissed whisper, and the kiss of a knife against her skin.
Genet continued to pray as Narine rubbed the holy water over her arms and shoulders.
I can’t keep going l
ke this.
The fine scars that crawled up her left arm all the way to her elbow were a testament to her vocation and her magic. She opened her eyes and glanced at Gelile, who watched her with unwavering focus.
Narine remembered watching her mother the same way Gelile watched her, as if her adult body was a riddle for her childish mind to decipher. Her mother’s arms had been marked by elaborate scarification, a curiosity to the uninitiated and a testament of power to those in their order.
The water bit her skin with its cold sting, but her lungs loosened and her mind and heart settled. She tried to release it all to flow away with the water.
The guilt.
The uncertainty.
The doubts that plagued her mind.
The next year would be different. Somehow she would set things right.
Genet whispered prayers over her, kissing the top of Narine’s head.
She didn’t deserve Genet.
The bath, the prayers, and the predawn waking were rituals, but they were born of a faith that had anchored Narine’s ancestors for over a thousand years. She knew better than the average human that time changed everything. It was far more fluid than the water Genet poured over her head.
But this? This did not change.
The earth beneath her feet. The sky above her. The sun rising in the east and the early-morning prayers of the priests. The afternoon call to salat ringing from the mosque and the smell of roasting coffee and frankincense calling her home.
These things were the frames on which her life was woven.
In a world that shifted constantly, Pagume did not change.
Genet finished her prayers in Ge’ez, the language of the old liturgy. “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.”
“Amen,” Narine repeated.
“Amen.” Gelile’s sleepy pout turned into a whine. “Ema…”
Genet set the pitcher next to the washbasin. “You’re next.” T
he stern woman pointed to the stool as Narine stood and reached for the gebi that Samira held open for her. She slid her house shoes back on, the dirt from the garden sticking to the damp soles of her feet.
Narine clutched the wrap tightly around her body, goose bumps spreading over her skin. She watched in silence as Gelile stomped over to the basin, took off her nightdress, and hung her head back. “It’s cold.”
“It’s not that cold.”
Narine didn’t agree with Genet, but she said nothing, exchanging a glance with Samira, who was holding back a smile.
Gelile continued her childish rant as she sat on the bench. “Samira doesn’t have to take a bath.”
“Samira is Muslim.” Genet took the bonnet from Gelile’s hair and lifted the pitcher of holy water. “She has to bathe for many things, but not for Pagume. Where is your heart? Would Maryam be pleased by your complaining?” Genet’s arch look silenced her daughter. “Thank you.”
She poured the water over Gelile’s narrow shoulders, the child’s dark brown skin glowing soft gold as the water and the dawn light combined. The little girl froze and her back straightened, but she didn’t whine again.
Narine watched her goddaughter receive the ritual bath, then took Genet’s place to bless the woman who was—in every way but blood—her sister.
Samira took Gelile and wrapped her in a thick towel, rubbing her arms and legs as Narine spoke the first prayer of Pagume over her sister. The holy water poured over Genet’s round shoulders and smooth arms, falling over her soft belly and sturdy hips, hitting the ground and sanctifying the living earth.
When Genet’s husband had been alive, he had been the one to offer prayers in his deep, soothing voice and bless the women he watched over, but Teddy was gone, lost to the mundane tragedy of a bus accident when Gelile was only three.
Genet leaned her head back, silently asking for Narine to soak her thoroughly. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved in prayer.
Narine finished the water, tipping the basin to the side and pouring the last into Genet’s hair. She leaned over and kissed her sister’s forehead. “Amen.”
“Amen.”
As the basin was put away and the sun rose in the east, Narine let out a relieved sigh, g
rateful for the reprieve Pagume offered.
For the next five days, she would have to take freezing cold baths every morning with an enthusiastically praying Genet, but at least nothing about the world would shift. For the next five days, the timeline would rest.
The thirteenth month had begun.
While it was a holiday for most of the country with neighborhood festivals, light shows in Sheger Park, and bright yellow daisies adorning the shops and skytrains, Narine was still expected at work.
She gulped down the breakfast of chechebsa and tea before she dressed in dark pants and a close-fitting black shirt, stuck her freshly charged AI assistant in her ear, and drank a quick cup of coffee Samira had prepared in the living room.
Alerted by her personal assistant, the house AI greeted Narine as she was reaching for her zip-bike helmet.
“Good morning, Narine. Today is the first day of Pagume and the sixth day of September in the World Calendar. Would you like to hear the news headlines for today?”
“No, thank you. Forecast only.” She grabbed the sleek fiberglass helmet and paused to hear the weather report.
“There will be rain this afternoon at approximately one o’clock. Would you like to send commuting alternatives to your assistant?”
“Nope. I won’t be driving during the rain.”
“There is a knot of traffic under the skytrain overpass in Arat Kilo Square. Would you like commuting alternatives?”
A knot of traffic wouldn’t be an issue on her bike. “No, thank you.”
She was almost out the door when her niece stopped her.
“Akeste!”
“Yes?” Narine kissed the top of Gelile’s head and hugged her shoulders. “Enjoy your holiday. I really need to go, mita.”
The little girl looked up with a dimpled smile. “Will you bring me a present tonight?”
Narine narrowed her eyes. “For what?”
“Because…” The girl fidgeted with the end of her braid. “Ah… I didn’t cry this morning.”
Narine knew she could easily find some trinket for her niece at the holiday markets in Shiro Meda. There would be hair clips or a flower garland or digital wristbands that would light up and delight the girl. “Are you going to complain about your bath tomorrow or be very, very good for your mother?”
Gelile considered the sacrifice. “I’ll be very good. Very quiet. And I will pray all day today.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Okay. I will pray today though.” She walked over and hung o
n to Narine’s arm. “Please get me a present?”
“Eshi, I’m going to call your mother and check this afternoon before I leave work, and if you’ve been helpful to her and Samira, I will bring a present.” She put on her helmet and adjusted her assistant to link with the speakers. “You do not get a present for praying.”
“Thank youuuuuu.” Her niece kissed her hand. “You’re not making a jump today, are you?”
“It’s Pagume.” Narine finally walked out the door. “No one travels during Pagume.”
Gelile followed her out to the front step and watched as Narine walked to the concrete-block garage covered with solar cells. Along with the household batteries, the garage contained an antique diesel Land Cruiser Teddy had fixed up, a small electric car they used on rainy days, and the practical electric all-wheel crawler that could be programmed to drive anywhere in the city.
The morning was crisp, sunny, and the dense clouds that marked the rainy season had started to finally break apart before the New Year. Narine would take her favorite form of commute, her zip bike.
She unplugged the bike from its charger and glanced at the dusty workbench that hadn’t seen love since Teddy had passed. Genet’s brother occasionally came by the compound to fix things in the house, work on the solar cells, or use Teddy’s tools to tinker with his antique Volkswagen, but he was the only one to use them.
She rolled the bike into the yard, passing more solar cells mounted on the old stone walls, and patches of vegetables that Genet and Samira grew to supplement their fresh-food allowance.
Narine’s house was a twentieth-century relic in a city that had grown up and out as the population of the capital had surged in the past fifty years. Still a spreading, single-story wooden house with a large garden around it, the property was dwarfed by modern mansions that had been built as the area transitioned from a middle-class neighborhood to a wealthy enclave for the upper class and international professionals. Their neighbors came from Addis, Lagos, Bombay, Shanghai, and Rio, a mélange of cultures that was a testament to the future of the African capital.
In the distance, the skyscrapers in the financial district dominated the skyline, and a concrete skytrain overpass was blocked by a soaring row of eucalyptus trees. As she pushed her bike to the front gate, a car of
early-morning commuters whooshed overhead, the clack-clack of electromagnets the only audible evidence of their transit.
Narine’s compound had been in her family since her ancestors had moved from Armenia to Greece to Addis in the 1920s. As she was the only powerful mage of her generation who had remained in the capital city, the property fell into her care. There were three houses within its stone walls, and while Narine lived in the largest one, she was rarely alone. She always had cousins coming and going along with family friends from Europe, Asia, the United States, and other parts of the continent.
Genet and her daughter lived in the second house, and the third—more like a cottage—was kept for guests, visiting relatives, or the occasional traveling mage.
Narine couldn’t imagine living alone. People—mundane or magic—were exhausting as a rule, but the lack of them was worse. Too much silence left her with more time to think.
She pushed the bike down the path toward the metal gate where Samira was already pulling back the door.
“The Chen family just got a new automatic gate,” Samira said. “It links with the house assistant.”
Narine nodded. “Is that so?”
The girl gave her an innocent shrug. “It has security built in. It would probably be much safer than this one.”
“And it doesn’t squeak when you pull it open?”
The girl gave her a brilliant smile. “You don’t have to pull it at all.”
“But if we had a modern gate, how would the whole neighborhood know when we were coming and going?”
Samira rolled her eyes. “Have a beautiful day, Akeste.”
“Make sure Gelile helps in the garden today before she goes to play.” Narine put on her gloves and flipped down her visor before she mounted her bike. “I’ll send a message when I’m on my way home.”
“I’ll make her pull weeds.”
“Perfect.”
Narine rode through the gate and into the narrow alleyway, winding through the market stalls that were already bustling as vendors swept the cobblestones and propped up the metal shades that folded down at night. Over the stalls, solar-powered electric notice boards flipped between news headlines and advertisements for the latest assistants
zip cars, or new takeaway food stalls.
India expanding Somali shipbuilding hub.
CityZipPasses on sale for the new year. Buy ahead!
Beto’s Brazilian Barbecue; new branch in Sarbet.
The flashing ads and headlines followed Narine down the alley along with the scent of boiling coffee and cooking oil. Familiar sights and smells greeted her as she maneuvered her bike through the pedestrian-crowded street.
Men and women on their way to work or heading to holiday markets stopped at the stalls on the corner, chatting over coffee or buying crisp sambusas or beef empanadas before they started their day. A few familiar faces greeted Narine, but the city was waking and the sun was crawling higher in the sky. It was the beginning of the holiday season, and everyone had somewhere to go.
She left the side streets and merged onto the main road, weaving between the automated crawler traffic that congested under the skytrain overpass before she whipped around the traffic circle and sped up as she passed Addis Ababa University.
When Narine was riding, she was just another commuter on her way to work. She could be anyone or no one. She wasn’t a third-tier mage of the order, she wasn’t the scion of House Kayl, she was just a twenty-eight-year-old woman on her way to work. She breathed in the morning air still tinged with the scent of rain from the night before.
Narine passed the lion monument and pointed her bike north, passing the university gates on her left, scattered government buildings, and the countless blue-and-white electric minibuses that ferried residents to their work at the foreign embassies or the always-expanding government compound near Entoto.
Pagume also marked the beginning of the tourist season in the country, so in addition to commuter traffic, tour buses filled with Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian visitors crowded the roads in the museum district, and the scent of food carts drifted across the road as eager vendors catered to the tourist crowds.
While much of the world had to supplement their supply of natural foods with manufactured nutrients because of climate change, Ethiopia continued to have a thriving fresh-food economy, which made it popular as a tourism destination for those eager to taste natural meats, fresh fruit, vegetables, and spices.
Narine tried to slow down as she passed the crowded intersection, but a tall man wit
h a beard, sunglasses, and an orange backpack nearly stepped in front of her before she could swerve around him.
He stepped back from the traffic just in time but yelled after her, “Hey, watch it!”
Narine paused at the light and looked back at him, surprised by his rudeness and his English.
She hadn’t been the one stepping into traffic.
“Watch where you’re going!” The man looked like he’d spilled something hot. He was holding a paper cup and shaking his hand.
Narine narrowed her eyes behind her visor. The man might be Ethiopian, but he sounded American. Perhaps he was one of the numerous diaspora who had returned in the previous decades to invest in the burst of economic activity that energy and agriculture had brought.
A skytrain passed overhead with its familiar clack-clack-clack, and a woman with a Syrian accent yelled out the window of the minibus she was driving. “Don’t you see the light? Move!”
Narine turned away from the American and focused on navigating the road without holding up traffic.
Minutes later, she pulled off the main road just before the American embassy, bumped over the pedestrian walkway, and guided her bike through quiet backstreets until she wound past a city park and approached the gates that had guarded the order’s Addis headquarters for over 175 years.
It was a lush, wooded compound a world away from the bustling city that had grown around it. As large as an embassy, it contained offices, libraries, residential dwellings, meditation rooms, and constellar temples.
The sign on the stone wall of the heavily guarded compound read Society of Ethnography, Geography, and Ethnolinguistics.
In reality, the compound housed the largest and oldest branch of the Seba Segel.
***
The hedge mage at the door held up his hand before she could enter. “Vocation?”
He spoke in English and was dressed in formal white with the red trim typical of order guards. Hedges were the security arm of the order, powerful mages born with magic that could build barriers and sense incursion. They were trained with martial precision and the first layer of protection around any order compound.
Narine was wearing no uniform and had her helmet tucked under her arm, her riding jacket open, and her messenger bag banging against her hip. She could tell this hedge was new to the order when his eyes lingered on her face. He was probably from one of the northern observatories where foreigners weren’t as common.
“Good morning.” Narine answered him in Amharic and managed a smile despite his frown. “Are you new in the city?”
“Vocation?”
That was it? Narine felt her delicate bubble of morning peace waver.
The solemn hedge nodded at Yìchén, a senior alchemist who had worked closely with her mother, developing the new console for the traveling chamber.
The scholar adjusted his glasses and pulled a lanyard with a clear ID card from inside his jacket, spilling tea on it as he held it out. “Ech,” he muttered in Amharic.
“Dr. Mǎ.” The hedge glanced at the ID card covered in tea. “Good morning and welcome.” He waved at the alchemist to enter the building.
“Thank you.” The doctor adjusted his glasses. “Oh, good morning, Narine. A peaceful Pagume to you.”
Pagume was always a time of rest for travelers. “Thank you, Dr. Mǎ. Good morning to you too.”
The alchemist gave her an absent wave and walked into the building. Narine turned back to the hedge. His stoic expression hadn’t changed.
“I’m Narine.”
He was tall and lithely built with closely cropped hair, deep black skin, and a wide mouth that might have been expressive if it ever moved.
“I work here. Narine Anahid?”
The hedge didn’t move or crack a smile. Granted, his entire purpose in life was protecting the compound, but the mage at the gate had already greeted her by name, exchanged family niceties, and shown her where to park. She was clearly not a stranger.
“Your vocation?” the guard asked again.
“Seriously?” She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket to reveal her traveling scars. “Anything else?”
The man glanced at them, then back at her face. “I need to see your identification card.”
So the new guy went solely by the book. When she was younger, she would have approved. Now it was just annoying.
“Right.” Narine set her messenger bag down and placed her helmet beside it. She unzipped her biking jacket and peeled it off, revealing her black shirt underneath. She unzipped a narrow pocket in the seam of her jacket and retrieved the bent, plastic-coated card with her name, vocation, and ID number on it along with her picture.
Narine Anahid Khoren
Traveler-3
4-Tr-2043EC.
Her name was hers, her mother’s, and her grandfather’s names as they were the most dominant powers in her parentage. She was a traveler of
the third tier, and her ID number indicated she was the fourth traveler mage born in the year 2043 in the Ethiopian calendar.
The Seba Segel was meticulous about records, and this hedge seemed like the type that thrived on organization. It was no wonder he was guarding the Addis compound when he looked younger than Narine.
He examined the card, handed it back to her, then nodded. “Sister Narine, my name is Brother Mesfin. It is nice to make your acquaintance.”
“Great.” She clutched her card between her teeth and tried to gather her bag, her helmet, and her inside-out jacket in her arms. “So I’ll be seeing you around?” she muttered around the card.
He nodded. “As the stars will it.”
So he was a traditionalist. “It’s nice to meet you, Mesfin.”
Narine held on to her belongings with both arms and pushed the door to the front office open with her shoulder. From the lobby, the headquarters of the order looked like any of the hundreds of random charities, research organizations, and academic institutions that dotted the city.
On the wall behind the front desk, there was a giant map of the world with Addis in the very center and SEBA SEGEL branches marked with stars in Zanzibar, Peru, New Zealand, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Iceland.
One might wonder what the Society for Ethnography, Geography, and EthnoLinguistics was doing in a fairly homogenous region of the world like Iceland, but that was because linguistic studies were only a cover for their true mission.
“Good morning, Sister Narine.”
She adjusted the bundle in her arms as she walked. “Good morning to you, Sister Njeri.”
She shot a quick smile at the older woman at the front desk who had transferred from Mombasa three years before and quickly made herself indispensable to the order. She was tall, broadly built, and had a crown of silver-threaded braids that fell to her waist.
Though Njeri had been born to a mage family, her power was nonspecific, which meant that she was magic sensitive but not powerful. No one would ever say the woman lacked authority though, not without risking the wrath of administrative persecution.
“There’s a message waiting in your office.”
Narine frowned. “ F
rom who?”
Njeri shook her head. “Not for me to know. It was delivered from the safe yesterday after you’d left for the day.”
“Right.”
Every order had a safe where messages across the timeline could be guarded and opened in a future time. Because travelers weren’t allowed to jump into the future or anywhere within their own lifespan, the safe was the only way for mages from the past to send messages forward. It was also only accessible to a particular sect of archivist mages who released each safeguarded letter at the exact time and place specified by the sender.
Narine headed to the left and made her way through the mostly empty building to her office, where she found an envelope on her desk with a red seal, her name, and the date.
Narine Anahid Khoren
1ST PAGUME 2071 EC
She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but she recognized the paper, and a sense of dread fell over her morning like a cloud covering the sun.
She broke the wax seal that had remained unmarred in the safe and opened the letter, a missive written on a faded journal page dated the year 1920. Across the faded writing, there was only one sentence, written in bold black ink: This cannot continue.
Narine froze, her hands clutching the note.
She knew who had written it, but why?
She was trying to process the reason for the cryptic note when she felt a familiar shiver at the back of her neck.
At first it didn’t register. The cold, creeping sensation was what every traveler felt when the timeline shifted. It was a shiver she’d felt since she was twelve years old.
But no.
No.
The letter fluttered to her desk with a whisper, forgotten as the shock of realization hit her.
Today was the first day of Pagume.
Her mind rebelled at the thought.
Time travel was forbidden during the thirteenth month.
Those precious five days were the only time when fixed points on the
timeline—the tasary—could be altered, so travel was completely taboo. Wars had been fought over it. Mages had been murdered and travelers had been lost to their native timelines to prevent it.
Narine tried to think of an explanation for the impossible, but the tremor at the base of her skull didn’t lie.
History had been altered in the thirteenth month.
Six years before…
Narine watched her mentor from the side of the room as he drank tea with the mage elders of House Mkisi and an envoy and diviner from the island of Tanzania. The meeting room was a lavish hall in the Mkisi castle, located in coastal Mombasa.
The building itself was a three-story edifice of pure white plaster with arches and balconies decorated with elaborate filigree stonework, surrounded by towering palms. The breeze from the warm Indian Ocean swept through each room, cooling the tiled floors and wafting the scent of plumeria and salt through the air.
Abdi and Narine had jumped back to the late nineteenth century two days before, and Abdi had been deep in conference since yesterday morning.
The mages sat on traditional low couches that lined the walls of the hall and drank tea served with trays of fresh fruit and date candy. Narine sat along the edge of the room with various clerks, servants, and seconds, all listening in on the conversation between the traveler mage from the future and heads of the two most powerful houses on the Swahili coast. ...
