Looking for this book...

[Garenex]

So I had a friend recently post on my facebook wall that he was looking for a book that he remembers reading in his childhood, but the problem is that he can't remember the title, author, or the names of any of the characters. All he can remember is some of the plot. Here is his summary of what he can remember.

"There's a child and the lines on his hand form a star and he's part of a prophecy. He's the only one who can carry this sacred water that is supposed to revive a tree, I believe. The water is too heavy for someone else to even carry a drop of it. The book starts off much like the Silmarillion in that it starts at the creation of this world in particular with the creation of the beings and what they rule over and of one becoming jealous of the most powerful of them and going off on his own and becoming evil. Also, there's talk of different gods (maybe the same as these first beings created?) and one of them is killed? and comes back to life in the land of the mortals and rumors are whispered about him saying things like "the white paladin" and "the shining knight" in the north. Also, in punishment for their wrongdoings generations ago, the sun was brought close to the land by one of these godlike beings so as to burn the people in the south and ever since then they've had burned skin. They were under siege for a while in the south I think. This is mostly all of what I remember about this book. As far as I know, I think it was the first in a series of books."

I did a bunch of researching on google, but I wasn't able to come up with anything. Does this story sound familiar to anyone?