Understanding the Asara Kazeel (The Book of Prophecy)

The Asara Kazeel ("Book of Prophecy") is the oldest known text in the setting. According to the Ivalieh, it existed before the current Universe and somehow foretells the events that will unfold during its lifetime. It is not a history book, and it is not meant to explain the mechanics of the universe. Instead, like many real-world religious texts, it describes events symbolically and focuses on their meaning. Much of the prophecy only becomes understandable after the events it foretells have already happened.

At the center of the prophecy is Lisje, an unimaginably ancient being who has lived through the lifetimes of countless Universes. Lisje is not the creator of space and time, nor does he control the birth or death of Universes. Universes are born, expand, grow old, and eventually collapse according to laws older than even Lisje himself. He exists outside normal space and time and works within this eternal cycle rather than controlling it.

Lisje's purpose is to cultivate intelligent life.

Helping him are the Ivalieh. Long ago they were themselves a mortal race that successfully completed Lisje's great design in an earlier Universe. When their Universe died, they ascended into Heaven, a timeless dimension outside physical reality. From there, they continue Lisje's work by sending powerful physical descendants into each new Universe as gardeners, teachers, and stewards. These Ivalieh live among younger civilizations, guiding them, sharing knowledge, nurturing technology, teaching the use of Acal, and quietly tending Lisje's great garden of life.

The central idea behind Lisje's work is remarkably simple.

Every potential superspecies begins not as a civilization, but as three carefully planted seeds. These seeds are not the races themselves. They are ancestral populations, subtly altered from existing life and placed upon suitable worlds. Over millions of years they evolve naturally into entirely new intelligent species before ever discovering one another.

Usually the three seeds of a single experiment are planted within the same galaxy. On the rarest occasions, Lisje separates them across multiple galaxies, trusting that even after millions of years of independent evolution they will still find one another.

No race is complete on its own. Each carries only part of what the final superspecies requires. The three great qualities are Strength, Wisdom, and Grace. Some races possess one strongly, others possess two. The hope is that, after millions of years of evolution, civilization, exploration, and finally interstellar—and sometimes intergalactic—travel, the three races will rediscover one another and freely choose to unite.

Most never do.

Thousands upon thousands of seeds are planted in every Universe.

Many perish before intelligence ever arises.

Others reach civilization, only to destroy themselves.

Some endure, yet never find their brothers.

Only a handful become whole.

Those few survive the ending of their Universe, ascend into Heaven, and become Lisje's new children and stewards for the next age.

This is simply the way of things.

By the time the prophecy takes place, countless races inhabit the three great seeded galaxies. Many successful superspecies already exist, each representing one of Lisje's earlier triumphs. The prophecy focuses on only two experiments—not because they are the only ones, but because they promise to surpass everything that has come before.

The first consists of the races Human, Koter, and Anjil.

Even this triad is extraordinary. Their balance of Strength, Wisdom, and Grace exceeds even that of the Ivalieh, who had long been regarded as the greatest children of any previous Universe.

The second consists of Geneler, Kildoron, and Korthea.

They are greater still.

They represent the greatest promise Lisje has ever sown. So remarkable are they that Lisje does something almost unheard of: instead of planting all three races within one galaxy, he separates them across multiple galaxies, trusting that they will one day find one another across the darkness between worlds.

Seeing them, Lisje experiences wonder for the first time in all eternity.

Not all of Lisje's older children welcome this.

The races that ascended in previous Universes understand what these new triads represent. If they succeed, they will become the next stewards of creation. The older races have always known that their own service is temporary. When a greater race appears, they eventually pass away to make room for those who follow.

Most accept this.

A few do not.

Fear becomes jealousy.

Jealousy becomes hatred.

For the first time in all eternity, evil appears in Heaven.

Leading this rebellion is Lyfujil.

Lyfujil is not a devil in the traditional sense. He is the surviving core of an ascended race from an even older Universe. When his people's service ended, he refused to accept death. Because he would not yield his place to those who should follow, Lisje cast him beyond Heaven into another dimension outside normal space and time.

There Lyfujil waits.

His goal is simple:

Nothing after him should ever replace him.

Rather than destroying the young races outright, Lyfujil attacks the design itself.

The Geneler lose their connection to Acal, the force that would have allowed their superspecies to become complete. They survive, continue to evolve, and eventually reunite with Kildoron and Korthea—but they can never flower into what they were meant to become.

The Anjil suffer a different wound. Their blood is corrupted so that they lose the ability to interbreed with Humans and Koter. In the language of the prophecy, "the blood remembered no longer." They survive, but the path toward completion appears lost.

Seeing both of his greatest experiments broken, Lisje reluctantly concludes that the garden has failed. As has happened countless times before, he orders the Ivalieh to clear it and prepare for a new beginning.

Then something impossible happens.

Against every expectation, an Anjil named Selena is still able to bear a child with Samantha Rose, a Human/Koter hybrid.

Their daughter is Jane Rose.

She is the first of a new race: the Selaren.

The prophecy describes this simply:

The seed remembered.
The promise bore its first flower.
And the flower was a Rose.

For Lisje, hope returns.

He immediately sends a new command to the Ivalieh:

Stay your hand.

The garden yet bears promise.

Lyfujil prevents that message from reaching them.

Believing the experiment truly finished, the Ivalieh faithfully continue the task they have performed since before the memory of worlds.

They first arrive in Lisie (the Large Magellanic Cloud), where they destroy the Geneler civilization. A remnant escapes across the darkness to Oniem (the Milky Way), where it reunites with Kildoron and Korthea.

The seed survives.

It takes root.

But it never flowers.

The Ivalieh then arrive in Oniem.

Nothing beneath the stars can withstand them.

Before Lisje's message finally reaches them, they destroy roughly one-third of all civilization in the galaxy.

Only then do they learn that the garden was still alive.

This is the greatest tragedy in the history of creation.

The Ivalieh had acted neither in hatred nor malice. They had faithfully carried out the last command they had received.

For the first time in all eternity, they had unknowingly cut down a living branch.

Meanwhile, Lyfujil's rebellion reaches Heaven itself.

Lisje never imagines that his own children could betray him.

They do.

In the resulting conflict Lisje is truly killed—not symbolically, but permanently. The rebel children perish as well, leaving Heaven completely empty for the first time since the beginning of creation.

The prophecy ends not with certainty, but with hope.

The Rose has flowered.

Heaven stands empty.

Perhaps, when this Universe finally reaches its inevitable end, the Selaren will ascend—not merely as Lisje's servants, but as his successors. With Heaven empty and the Father gone, they may become the new stewards of creation itself, tending the gardens of future Universes.

The prophecy does not know.

For the first time, the future lies beyond prophecy itself.

It ends with a single thought:

For within every seed there is the promise of a flower.