History of Lataria Read online

  Chapter 3: Concerning Blood-Elves

  The other half of the elves prayed to the remaining gods to help them in their resistance against the lies and evil that had befallen their race. But Sanguinar had cursed the other gods by taking on elvish form, for only one god at a time could take the form of any creature. Currently the rebellious one appeared as an elf, and as long as he did so, none of the other gods could clothe themselves in elvishness. Although the gods did not immediately answer the faithful elves, the elves built the resistance against the others. However, Sanguinar and his followers made the non-conforming elves leave the region. And so the two groups of elves were separated eternally. The fair elves, as they were soon to be called, remained in the most fertile parts of the region and served Sanguinar. The exiles—the elves forced to find another home—wandered miserably through desert, jungle, and swamp until they finally reached a land equal to the one they had left.

  On their journey to find another home, vegetable and green life was not always available for them to eat. In order for them not to starve, they broke one of the major forces set upon them by the gods—they slaughtered animals as needed for food and clothing. As news of the rebels’ actions reached the fair elves, a new name was given to the rebels. They were then called the blood-elves. For elves, by their nature and the way in which they were created by the gods, were not to shed the blood of any living creature, be they elves or animals. Even though this group had then been labeled “the blood-elves,” they loathed themselves for committing such horrible acts, and whenever they could they refrained from heedless killing. Eventually, they found land that could support them, and they immediately turned from the shortly adopted ways of eating animal’s meat.

  Although the elves killed animals only when they had to, the animals, who once used to be amiable with the elves, turned against them with mistrust. Large beasts that were once kind and gentle became ferocious to any elf that dared near it. Having been attacked a few times by the elves, the animals, each in its own ways, learned how to attack the elves and in turn, how to protect themselves. Eagles and other flying birds became skeptical of the elves, and they no longer landed on their shoulders, but instead they clawed at the elvish faces. Deer no longer greeted the elves but leapt away from them with such great bounds that not even the fastest elf could run quickly enough to catch them. And so by the elves’ journey through wild, unkind, and remote places of Lataria did the animals turn against the elves.

  Fire—the act of burning living plants—was something that had never been explored. Even though they had never experienced fire, they knew it existed. But burning plants and trees was equivalent to killing animals, and harming the plants was against the inherent nature of the elves. Given the forces at work on the elves, it would not be surprising to a modern student in Lataria to learn that the blood elves ate the animals’ meat raw: there was no need in killing so many living beings just so that a few elves may sustain their energy and bodies a few days more in the search for fertile land.

  Now, far north and west from whence they came they arrived at soil and water that they found pleasing to their nature of living in harmony with the beings around them. There they found fertile soil for planting, wonderful weather so they never worried about becoming too hot or too cold. The daylight lasted slightly longer than the nighttime darkness, both of which they enjoyed equally. Even though they did not initially have to sleep, they reveled in the act of resting their minds, for when they did that their minds became open to everything around them, and the nighttime provided them with a different consciousness of nature than did the daytime.

  But their joyful time did not last; soon Sanguinar recognized that he had not succeeded in creating miserable lives for the rebellious elves, so he smote them the best he could. He destroyed their land with a frost so intense it would never leave the land. He saw how they endured the heat of the desert, and so he knew that his only other option involved the coldness. Frost covered everything, then a thick layer of snow, then more frost, and finally frozen water. Soon they had no means to sustain themselves, and to worsen their situation, he sent them horrible monsters of ice and wind. Dragons, the elves called them, for these massive creatures could exhale the coldest air out of their lungs for minutes upon minutes. Dragging the air into their lungs and also by dragging their large bodies across the newly formed ice, the dragons made the loudest sounds that the elves had ever heard when the scales shifted as the dragons moved. In this still early stage of Lataria, fire dragons did not yet exist, but the ice dragons were able to torment the elves. They had wings and occasionally tortured the elves from their stations in the sky. All that was lush and green had been covered by frost and therefore left the blood elves with no plan of survival. By the dragons’ torture, their homes were destroyed in thick layers of ice and the elves found themselves ill prepared for the freezing temperatures. Being accustomed to warm weather, they grieved when they were stricken with frost bite and when some in their party died from the cold. Still, the dragons assaulted the elves by blowing great gusts of cold wind out from their mouths which quickly met with the moisture in the air making it appear that ice actually issued from the dragons’ mouths.

  The ice and cold had reached and paralyzed the elves quickly but soon the elves took to pleading for mercy with the beasts. With no shelter and no provisions, the elves surrendered themselves to the large flying lizards and pleaded for anything to remove them from such great torture, even death—as long as it came swiftly. The dragons, being mostly amiable creatures, halted their assault on the elves to learn more about the people they were destroying. Although their scales were hard as stone and cold as metal, their hearts, a modern student may say, were warm and felt pity for the minute people who were openly surrendering to them. The elves begged for the dragons to have mercy on them. The elves were surprised when all of the dragons began speaking to one another using the elvish tongue which they could understand. The elves marveled at the dragons’ speech and wanted to know where they learned it, but the dragons said that once the elves told their story, then the dragons would tell theirs. Up until that point the dragons had knowledge of only one side of the story, and so took advantage of the situation and their power to hear the other side.

  These dragons have been known to be the wisest beings in all Lataria, some even argue wiser than the gods. For even as both sides of the schism sounded viable, the dragons recognized the blood-elves as the ones in need. The dragons stopped torturing the elves who were dying quicker with each passing moment and began to aid them.

  Realizing that a barren land full of ice would only worsen the status of the elves, the dragons let the strong elves climb onto their backs. The weaker elves were grasped securely but snuggly in their talons, and the dragons flew away from the damage they had inflicted. One icy landscape was exchanged for another as the dragons arrived back at their home with the ill elves. Even though the elves’ spirits fell when they saw ice as far as their keen eyes could see, they felt some comfort when the dragons set them down in front of a castle made of ice.

  A pale cold light encompassed the land: a light that never altered as they soon realized. The ice reflected the light and made it appear even brighter. But inside the ice castle the elves found rooms filled with light from the outside, and they found rooms enclosed in darkness for no light was allowed to penetrate certain walls. At first the elves thought the dragons had created such magic, but the dragons explained that they had no skills in magic, and that whatever extraordinary things occurred must have had their origins in the elves. After this discovery that the elves could do magic, they commenced working their magic to make their new home to their liking. Light and darkness were mustered so that when they wanted to sleep there would be no light, yet when they wanted to work, they could see what they were doing.

  The elves managed to find food and prepare adequate clothing for themselves, but there was still one thing th
at remained elusive: warmth. Fire. The heavier skins that they wore protected them from the cold and the ice structures sheltered them from the sometimes harsh, arctic winds. But it was not enough—they needed more. However, no wood or plants were there for them to sacrifice for their warmth. Even though they did not want to harm living things, they knew that they would have to surrender some of their inherent loves in order to survive. They had already killed animals with their own hands, and now they graciously accepted any meat and dead animals the dragons brought to them. Abandoning their values was becoming easier, and those elves in charge for the wellbeing of their party decided that the only way for them to survive would be to reevaluate their morals and set forth new ones to which they would hold themselves. This change began to give each one of them a clearer conscience, but there was still no fire to be had.

  Despite the complete change in their living situation, the elves began to enjoy themselves again. They became the trustworthy acquaintances with the dragons and they began to pick up the pieces of the lives they left. Elves interested in different areas pursued their interests, whether they be in mythology, science, art, numerology, weaponry, or keeping house. Wonderful ice sculptures decorated the landscape and young elves forged their swords by cutting away slabs of ice into thin rods, and then fighting with them to see how well blades of ice could withstand and deliver blows.

  Meanwhile, the pact between the elves and dragons did not go unnoticed by Sanguinar. Nor did their flight from the land the dragons had frozen, nor their recovery of life in the land of ice. The fact that they had outsmarted him again angered him so much that he sent another natural calamity to plague them. He sent darkness. The absence of light covered everything around them like a smothering blanket. Even when the sun shone upon the elves, a curtain of black restrained the light from ever reaching them. As if the ice had not been cold enough already, the darkness made their icy land feel as if it were twice as chilled. The dragons did not seem to mind, but several elves fell ill again, and because of the complete cold and darkness of their situation they could not move again. Those who were sick earlier had only just recovered, and so traveling was for all of them impossible.

  So one of the dragons left and stayed away for days. Indeed, he stayed away so long that both elf and dragon worried that he would not return. Yet one fortunate day they saw the winged creature flying toward them. It was not until he landed that they saw he had a smaller bird on his back. The dragon approached the elves and said to them, “I brought you something that will end some of your troubles.” He nudged the bright colored bird toward them, “This is Phoenix. He’s a strange bird and I had to scour the earth to find him. But find him I did—the only one of his kind—and he will help you.” The elves found it difficult to believe that after days of searching, the only thing the dragon could bring back with him was a small colored bird. The bird, being blessed with magical powers, but no speaking abilities, flew around them to demonstrate his purpose. Here and there he alighted and left piles of burning flames. None of the elves had ever seen fire, and they were amazed, but also filled with fear and respect for the small bird. The dragon spoke again, “Phoenix is the only creature that I know of that can create the fire that does not burn. See, it does not melt the ice, nor does it burn anything else. Not only that, but now you will also have light by which to work.”

  And so the Phoenix lived in the castle and entertained itself by making different shapes and patterns with its fire. When he tired, he lighted fires for the elves and then slept to renew his fire-making skills. Yet even with the fires, the elves had to adjust to the darkness, which they did. They adjusted so well to the darkness that when an elf took the chance to leave and enter a land with light, he lost his sight from the sun’s brightness and became so weak that he would have died if another traveler had not saved him. With their new knowledge that they could not leave the darkness, they remained in the icy region for many years.

  One day, years later, news arrived from upon the winds that the land the dragons had frozen to eliminate the elves had thawed. The wind made it seem as though the melting of the ice were a bad thing, but the elves ignored the fell tidings on the winds and left their home with the intention of returning to the land that could have been so good to them. A family of elves remained behind in the land of ice for their grandparents were weak and could not travel the long, hard journey from whence they came. The dragons remaining behind reveled in the family for the dragons had grown terribly fond of these elves and were growing sad, and even pathetic in their sorrow at being parted from such wonderful friends. Two of the ice dragons accompanied the elves leaving the dragons’ land—making their traveling easier. When they arrived at their forgotten land, they almost passed it—thinking it was not theirs—but the dragons flew over the area and informed them that this land was indeed theirs. An immense, ominous forest stood where such beauty had been. Underneath the leaves and branches that made the canopy, no sunlight filtered through the branches and only malicious animals lived among the trees. Yet after a long journey, they decided to live in the forest and to undertake the task of at least taming the forest to withstand them. Because of the terrible animals and the rumors about the blood-elves the forest became known as the Fantasy Forest of Lataria and protected well the king’s castle and the region of Kalatonai. And so the blood-elves and the two ice dragons lived thus and even into the present with the populations of Lataria.