History of Lataria
Page 11
Chapter 12: Concerning the War of the Star
At the Sorcery Tower in Sodomorai, Melcon met his father and was slowly drawn into his affairs. This transformation happened so slowly that Melcon was not even aware of it until after he had already completed an important and vital task for Sanguinar. Sanguinar sent Melcon on the task of finding the “great stone” hidden in the south and to bring it to him at his camp in the north, not at the Sorcery Tower. Of all the history Melcon had learned, neither Nauhlata nor anyone else had taught him about the two stars. Indeed, few people knew about them. Besides, the tutor and Sanguinar both knew that if Melcon knew what the “great stone” was and what Sanguinar wanted to do with it, he would not have complied, but would have fought against Sanguinar.
Melcon’s ignorance returned to haunt him immediately after he handed the stone to his father. For countless days and nights, tirelessly but exhaustively, Sanguinar tried to combine the two stars. He used every kind of magic and charm he could think of and invent, but still he had no success. His fault, Melcon soon learned, was that Sanguinar had taken the dark stone out of its pedestal, when all that should be done was for the evil star to be sitting in its pedestal and the good star to be put in this pedestal as well.
As Sanguinar wasted away the days trying to join the two, the different countries and tribes began fighting one another. When they learned about the stars and what Sanguinar wanted to do, many of them stopped their fighting and joined forces, while others decided to join Sanguinar and his armies—thinking that Sanguinar would win. Melcon stepped up as a leader of one of Sanguinar’s armies. Melcon’s friends were in this army, and it was for them and no one else that he fought. Before the battles began, he returned home to the Bloody Woods to speak with his mother, who died in this last encounter with her son.
Melcon returned to Sodomorai to fight in the battles over the star. Many thought that the stars had already been joined, and those who knew that Sanguinar was having trouble, felt that he would soon combine the two stars and so doom them all. But a company of gnomes who liked to gain various jewels for their richly decorated city, saw that Sanguinar had the good star. The sight of the good star pleased them, and so with their stealth and skill in stealing precious jewels, they took this good star away from Sanguinar. The gnomes then went back into their homes under the mountains, and for a short time—during the war—nearly everyone forgot about the star.
This War of the Star involved nearly everyone in Lataria. The races and tribes among men, elves, dwarves, and warriors were pitted one against the other. All sides in the war and its battles were involved. There were the two main sides of Sanguinar versus his enemies, and then the other smaller kingdoms and rulers who wanted to trump both Sanguinar and anyone else in gaining power. Over the twenty-three year period of the Battles of the War of the Star, the race that suffered the most were the dwarves. The elves, men, and warriors knew that almost every dwarf went to battle. They were the best fighters, being harder to kill than men, and so they fought in the most battles. Therefore, at the close of the War of the Star, the dwarves were declared extinct. A few of them survived, yet they disappeared from the knowledge of even the most skilled in learning the secrets of Lataria. This war ended in 2873 CL, with the temporary disappearance of Sanguinar, the victory of the united armies, and the disappearance of the dwarves.