Lisa felt so alone, flying out over the ocean. She knew that if she ran into any trouble there was no way she could teleport back to the shore. She had crossed the dark line in the ocean. She could only fly on and hope she was heading in the right direction. She could use the Eye if she had to but she didn't want to risk it while flying. Her multitasking skills were improving but she still had a lot to learn.
Memories stirred, an image of a sky lord flashing before her mind. Her name was Frolin. Her life had been over for many centuries but her eyes sparkled as Lisa remembered her now. She had been little more than skin and bone for most of her life. She was too weak to fly or even stand. She had given up food, believing the Lasrecon were enough to sustain her without further nourishment. Nobody had been able to dissuade her from her course of action.
After three months of taking nothing but water she had died of starvation, her wings like sheets of wrinkled paper and her eyes sunk deep into her skull. It was a painful memory. It had come from Ibex. Frolin had been her sister and she had died alone.
Lisa pushed the memory aside, ignoring the tight knot that had formed in her chest. Blinking away tears, she tightened her bearskin and lost track of time as she flew over the deep blue ocean below. She realised she hadn't seen the creatures for a while but she didn't miss them at all.
Her thoughts wandered, unconsciously feeding on the memories that lived inside the Lasrecon. They were not her own memories. She knew that. They belonged to other people who had lived many centuries ago. Some memories belonged to people who hadn't yet been born. It was a strange concept to get her head around. Those future visions confused her more than anything.
She saw brief snippets of huge forests covering an unpopulated land. She didn't know what to make of them, but the older memories felt more familiar to her. She saw Malkor, smelling of rotten bones. He was once known as one of the lost. He committed vile atrocities to everyone he encountered, sometimes tearing people's skin off while they were still alive. He torched whole villages, using his deadly black spear to strike down women and children as they came running out of their burning homes. He fought wars with the minotaurs, boiling any that he captured in huge pots before feeding them to his cleric armies. And he used guardians to attack the armies that gathered against him.
She saw hundreds of thousands of bodies scattered across the land. Malkor's reign had been long and devastating. No one knew when it would come to an end. Was there no end to the evil in his heart?
She could feel him trying to enter her thoughts even now. He wanted her to see visions of the past. He wanted her to be overwhelmed by fear and despair. He knew she was flying over the ocean now and he knew what that meant. Had her thoughts leaked out towards him somehow?
She worried that she might have revealed the location of Sky Lord Island, bringing ruin upon them all. She did her best to form a mental shield around herself, even going so far as to project wrong information to anyone who might be listening. She imagined the island nestled amongst scattered rocks that weren't really there. She imagined herself to be much further south, flying over a grey ocean instead of the blue waves below. She just hoped it would be enough to confuse any sky lord if Malkor sent another to find her.
She spent hours perfecting her mental shield until she was sure no thoughts could leak out. Only then did she allow herself to recall the name that Ibex had known for the Sky Lord Island - Mendulosa. It was a beautiful place. She was sure of it, even though she couldn't recall it at all.