Chapter 1 - Dearest Enemy
The wind rustled gently through the window of the small room. It was warm in here, so Kitty didn’t mind the little draft at all. She still had her eyes closed and let the wind gently play with her long, slightly wavy hair.
Kitty had been lying on this bed for hours. She wasn’t sure if she fell asleep during this time or if she was awake and thinking the whole time. At least Kitty hadn’t had any more weird dreams.
When Kitty remembered that she hadn’t dreamed in the last few hours, she suddenly had to think back to her dream from last night. The dream that Lina said it wasn’t a dream at all. Kitty still seemed pretty confused. She still didn’t know exactly what was true and what wasn’t. The fact that she now had it, the Stone of Truth, calmed her somewhat. Even if he didn’t come up with an answer. But Kitty was sure that one day he would tell her the truth.
Suddenly there was a rumble in front of the door that led to Kitty’s little hut, where she spent the last few hours. And not two seconds later the door burst open.
“Hey, Kitty,” said Jojo, carefully sticking her head in through the door. “Did you just lie there the whole time?”
Almost imperceptibly, Kitty nodded.
“Do you know what you’ve been missing?” Jojo waved her arms around as she entered Kitty’s hut. “This is a really great area here. Full of beautiful wrong turns, lots of hiding places, and you can play wonderfully with the Tajuna ball here.”
“Nice,” Kitty said impassively.
Jojo looked at her and when she realized that something was obviously wrong with Kitty, she sat down next to her on the edge of the bed.
“Hey, come on, Kitty,” Jojo said. “Come on, get up. We’ll be leaving in less than an hour anyway.”
Kitty would have liked to tell Jojo about the Stone of Truth. But something in Kitty didn’t want her to do that. Somehow Kitty had a feeling that it would be better at the moment not to tell Jojo anything about the wonderful stone that Lina had given her.
“I keep thinking about that strange dream,” Kitty said instead.
“You mean the dream with the fair? Kitty - you wanted to forget that.”
“You know, Jojo,” Kitty began, “sometimes I don’t really know anymore what’s real and what’s not. I mean what happens and what a dream is. It feels so weird at times, like it’s all just getting mixed up.”
“I know,” Jojo said. “Several of the caravan have that feeling. That must probably be related to the physical laws of this area.”
“I don’t think it’s just physical laws.”
Jojo then pulled Kitty’s arm and that’s how Kitty finally got out of her bed.
When Jojo and Kitty came out of the cabin, most of the people had already reloaded their carriages. Those whose carriages died in the fire had received new carriages. The inhabitants of this valley, the Shor’zéen, gave the caravan new provisions, new tents and sleeping bags.
By the time Kitty and Jojo got to the imperial carriage, Dennis, Sydney, and Natalie had almost finished stocking up. Torok, spokesman for the Shor’zéen, stood with them.
“Our calculations are now complete,” Torok said to Dennis. “We’ll be able to leave in a few minutes.” Then he spotted Kitty. “Ah, Kitty, there you are.”
“What do you mean your calculations are now complete?” Kitty asked.
“We told you that we can shorten a long journey considerably. Thanks to our high level of mathematics, we are able to calculate the shortest and most impossible paths,” explained Torok. “It has to do with the laws of physics.”
“Aha,” said Kitty, although she understood almost nothing. “Torok, I think it would be good if you traveled with us in the first carriage.”
“Well,” said Torok, “Tuvar, Taljum and I actually reserved our own carriage for us. But Tuvar and Taljum will do just fine on their own. I gladly accept the honor of being able to travel in the imperial carriage.”
Kitty nodded to him. Then, one by one, all the fellow passengers got into their wagons and waited for Kitty to give the signal to start the caravan.
“Mouse, are you okay?” Dennis asked.
Kitty rested her head on his shoulder without a word.
“Let’s go, Troi!” Jojo shouted to the driver after Torok, Sydney and Natalie had also taken a seat in the car that was leading the caravan. And then they drove off.
At first nothing unusual could be noticed. The wagons drove one behind the other on a wider lane, and the scenery didn’t change much.
The sound of clattering hooves echoed monotonously off the mountains and hills that rimmed the valley. It was obviously a lot bigger than Kitty or Jojo had first thought. Or they’ve already left the Shor’zéen Valley behind and just didn’t know it yet. In any case, they had already been on the road for many hours, and by now it was already deep in the night. Kitty thought again.
“What is it?” Jojo asked into the silence.
“Nothing,” Kitty said curtly.
“What are you thinking? Looks pretty good so far,” said Jojo full of energy.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said. She looked out the window. “Outside, nothing changes at all. If we can go faster, we shouldn’t notice it, right?” Kitty turned to Torok, who was sitting across from her, with this question.
“We’ll see how fast we’re progressing,” said Torok proudly. “You will be amazed at what our mathematics is capable of.”
“Kitty, I don’t like that,” Jojo suddenly said sternly, whereupon Kitty looked at her questioningly. “I don’t like that at all,” Jojo continued. “You’re completely ignoring the mission.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Kitty shook her head blankly.
“You talk about your dreams all the time, about how you’re doing and what’s on your mind,” Jojo accused her. “You don’t even think about the others anymore. Do you want me to tell you something, Kitty? I find that completely selfish and mean.”
“But Jojo... that’s not true what you’re saying,” Kitty said with a desperate expression. “More than anything, I want to fulfill the mission for us and our caravan. For all people in Lantyan. For all of Naytnal. How can you say I’m selfish?”
“Joyo! Kitty!” Dennis tried to calm the two girls down.
“What’s going on?” Natalie stammered, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“You keep withdrawing,” Jojo complained. “You don’t say anything anymore, you don’t talk to anyone anymore except Dennis. The other day you said you feel like I don’t like you anymore. Kitty, do you know what I think? It’s you who don’t like me anymore. Maybe you don’t like anyone anymore. You going it alone...”
“What on earth are you talking about, Jojo? You’re the one who’s been acting weird lately. you say strange things Your moods change every minute. One moment you’re still sweet and nice, then you yell around...”
“Stop that!” Dennis admonished both girls. “We won’t get any further like this.”
But Kitty seemed unimpressed. Now she was really on the move and could finally tell Jojo what had been bothering her about the last time.
“And then your friendship with Mik,” Kitty yelled at Jojo. “He’s doubtful. I don’t know what you love about him.”
“You’re jealous, yes,” Jojo roared.
Sydney, who has also woken up in the meantime, shook her head and looked questioningly at Natalie. However, she just shrugged her shoulders.
“Me and jealous?” said Kitty. “Jojo, I’m serious. We have to watch out for Mik.”
“You’re welcome to do that,” Jojo said loudly. “I trust him. I know he’ll take us where we need to go.” Jojo stood up and put his hand on the door handle. “You know what, Kitty?” she suddenly asked in a very calm voice. “Maybe you’re not the right person to lead this mission. Maybe Naytnal has the wrong empress.”
Then, without waiting for a reaction from Kitty, Jojo scurried out of the carriage while it was driving. And Kitty buried her head in Dennis’ shoulder, crying.
“It’s okay,” Dennis tried to comfort her. “She’ll pull herself together.”
“What about her?” Kitty stammered. “She’s against me. Why?”
Dennis just held his girlfriend tight. He knew that philosophizing with Kitty about what’s going on in Jojo’s head wouldn’t do much good now. At the moment he couldn’t change this situation either.
It wasn’t the first time Jojo had had a freak out lately. And when she did escape from the Imperial carriage, she was usually drawn to her new crush, Lord Mik Harrow, who rode in the second row just behind the Imperial carriage.
Kitty could see Jojo going to him. She saw her jump onto his horse and he pulled her up while the imperial carriage suddenly had to negotiate a fallen tree trunk. Kitty saw Jojo take the reins of Mik’s silver horse in her hands and then concentrate on jumping over the log. Apparently she didn’t want to bypass him like Troi did with the imperial carriage. Apparently Jojo wanted to jump over it with Mik and his horse.
And then she jumped. And suddenly the picture seemed to stop. Jojo, Mik and the silver horse hung in the air for a few seconds. Kitty’s eyes widened with shock. They hung in mid-air, just like that. Without her holding anything or anyone. Kitty looked closely. The other carriages drove on. It was just the one horse, hanging still in the air, with Jojo and Mik on his back.
After a few seconds Mik’s horse completed its jump. And everything suddenly went back to normal, as if nothing had happened.
“Did you see that?” stammered Sydney, who had also been following this thing. She turned to Torok. “What is it that makes this happen?” she asked him. But he just shook his head in amazement.
“This is the same phenomenon as back then with the clay bowls. Or that with the naming ceremony...”, Natalie stated thoughtfully.
“No,” Kitty then said quietly. “It’s different this time.” She paused and brushed hair from her forehead. “When the clay bowls fell, and at the christening of the ship, only things were affected. inanimate things. Now two people have been in the middle of something we don’t know.”
Sydney and Natalie looked at Kitty in surprise. Troi wanted to stop the carriage because he had also noticed what had happened, but Dennis motioned for him to continue anyway.
“Don’t you understand?” Kitty continued. “This time, time suddenly kind of slowed down around Jojo and Mik. And they didn’t even seem to realize it.”
“Oh dear...” Natalie made.
“What if this happens more often?” Sydney asked anxiously.
“We have to find out where this phenomenon comes from,” Dennis finally said. “And I suspect it won’t be too long before we get an answer to that.”
Dennis apparently had one of his premonitions again. Kitty knew that about him very well. She also knew she could trust him, so she didn’t have to ask further what Dennis was mulling over. She knew he would tell her when it was time.
While Kitty and the others in the imperial carriage were still shaking because of the phenomenon, which they had now encountered for the third time, Jojo and Mik actually didn’t seem to have noticed what was going on. Step by step they rode on.
“Well, Jojo, was there trouble in the imperial carriage again?” Mik smiled. He was obviously happy that Jojo was riding his horse again.
“Kitty sucks,” Jojo said irritably.
But the very next second, when Mik, who was sitting behind her, put his arms around her from behind, a smile flitted across Jojo’s face.
“Jojo, Kitty is your sister,” said Mik then. “If she’s annoying, you have to talk about it.”
“You can’t talk to Kitty anymore,” said Jojo. “I don’t understand that either. We used to be able to tell each other anything. We could talk to each other about anything. And now?”
Jojo played gently with her robe. Her hand gently stroked the beautiful Naytnal crest as she leaned back.
“You know,” she finally said, smiling to Mik, “I’d much rather be with you anyway. With you I feel a lot...” Jojo thought about it, but she couldn’t think of the word she was missing at the moment.
“Important?” Mik finally asked.
“Yes,” Jojo whispered. “You make me feel so important...”
“Jojo, sweetie,” Mik said to Jojo while gently stroking her light brown, shoulder-length hair. “You know you would make a great empress?”
“What do you mean by that, Mik?” Jojo asked in surprise. “Empress of which realm?”
“All over Naytnal,” Mik replied. “You would be a great empress for the star of the realms.” He looked at Jojo proudly.
Jojo was very impressed with it, but also realistic enough.
“Mik, that’s very kind of you to say that,” she replied. “But you know that only the creator of the Star of Empires can be its empress. And this is kitty. She built the mobile that opened the door to this world. She is the creator.”
“Sure she is,” Mik said, smiling. “But to whom has she dedicated most of her dreams, her fears, and her desires? Who has always played the most important role in Kitty’s dreams?”
“Our mom?” Jojo asked thoughtfully. “Dennis?”
“Jojo, it’s you,” Mik explained. “Always, and from the beginning, you were the biggest part of Kitty’s dreams, fears, and desires. You filled most of the stuff she built her mobile out of.”
“But she is still the creator.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mik. “But who says she always has to be the empress? You have equal potential for this task. You have the same dreams, fears and desires as Kitty. You’ve been a big part of Naytnal’s existence. It would be fitting for you to become Naytnal’s empress.” Mik patted Jojo’s shoulder proudly. “Be honest, haven’t you ever thought what it would be like if you were the Empress of the Star of Empires instead of Kitty?”
“Well...“, Jojo admitted, “I thought about it sometimes.”
“See?” Mik smiled at her.
“But I can’t really become it... can I?” Jojo asked.
“Who knows?” Mik smiled back.
It was very quiet again in the imperial carriage. Kitty was thinking again. It’s a good thing she hadn’t noticed what Jojo and Mik were talking about. Or maybe Kitty had a premonition? She looked out the window very sad, very tired and with her nerves at the end. When would it ever get better?
Suddenly, and precisely at the moment when nobody was expecting it, the strange thing happened: As if by magic, the imperial carriage suddenly floated up into the air. Kitty, Dennis, Sydney and Natalie looked puzzled and scared out the window. And Torok smiled.
“It’s okay,” he reassured the others.
And then Kitty and the others discovered it: Not only the imperial carriage floated up, but also the horse on which Mik and Jojo were sitting. The carriage of the Shor’zéen Tuvar and Taljum driving behind it, and also all the other horses and carriages, were suddenly floating. The entire caravan shot up as if by magic. Now the caravan was hovering about 1000 meters above the ground. And suddenly she began to move insanely fast. She glided through the air faster than a bird. All the carriages and horses floated ahead faster than an airplane. Faster than the fastest wind, the whole caravan shot into the morning, while the sun slowly rose again on the eastern horizon.
In less than two days, the caravan, equipped with more than twenty carriages, at least twice as many horses and several silver knights, managed to cover a distance of more than ten thousand kilometers in flight. It would definitely have taken weeks to do this the conventional way.
It was already broad daylight, almost evening, when the last of them had slowly got used to flying in their carriages. Sydney and Natalie, in particular, had trouble adjusting to this. But now they had made it, only now that the flight was almost over.
Kitty was the first to notice that they suddenly slowed down again. She could feel the imperial carriage dropping in height.
“What does that mean?” she asked Torok. “Are we going to be attacked again?”
“No,” Torok reassured her. “We’re just slowing down because we’re about to go down.”
“Are we there?” Dennis wanted to know.
“We’re very close to where you were headed,” Torok reported. “Unfortunately, we can’t land exactly there. We have to walk the last part.”
“You... you mean,” Kitty stammered, “below us is the realm of dreams? One of the most secret of all places?”
“It’s not far from here,” Torok explained.
Excited, Kitty, Dennis, Sydney and Natalie looked out the window. The imperial carriage sank lower and lower, and the other carriages and horses followed suit as if by magic.
And then Kitty got huge eyes from what she saw below: There was a plain that was somehow hanging in a valley. What was unusual about it was that the plain was surrounded by the mountain massif in a precisely circular manner.
Kitty looked closer. And only now, at second glance, could she see it: there was no plain below them, no valley either. The whole thing was nothing but a huge, large crater that stretched out in a circle over a rocky landscape. A meteorite the size of a small town must have caused it. Without further ado, the crater was large enough to hold an entire country, perhaps even an entire sea.
Kitty tried to pick out details. Several colors shone brightly in the crater. Looking closer, she made out small, strange-looking objects—perhaps houses—lit by the evening sun. Kitty was also able to spot other strange shapes that also glowed brightly. In the overall form, the individual objects down there might have formed something resembling a city. However, it appeared to be made entirely of glass. It had to be glass, the kind that could reflect and refract the light of the evening sun so that it shone brightly.
The caravan slowly flew over these strange formations in the crater and flew over the rim of the crater. The caravan finally touched down a good ten kilometers away.
When Kitty, Dennis, Sydney and Natalie, followed by Torok, then left the imperial carriage, all the other passengers had already got out or dismounted from their horses.
Jojo ran to Kitty.
she exclaimed. “It was crazy to fly like that, only on a horse.”
“How are you, Jojo?” Kitty asked immediately. She absolutely wanted to know immediately how Jojo felt about her. Had she already forgotten her argument at the beginning of this stage? She wanted so badly to reconcile with her.
But Jojo only looked coolly at Kitty. Then she immediately turned to Dennis.
“Where are we, Dennis?” she asked, suddenly looking very matter-of-fact.
“We’ve traveled more than ten thousand miles,” Dennis said.
“I’m sure that the place we’re looking for is very close by,” said Mik, who just walked behind Jojo to the others. “The area, the supposed valley – everything fits together. It fits the descriptions I know of of a realm that is very secretive. It’s called the realm of dreams.”
“This is it?” Jojo wondered. “Looks a bit desolate for that - just rocks, no plants...”
“I like it,” Mik interjected, laughing. Of course he liked it. Much here reminded him of the Silver Knights Empire, which he inhabited and ruled.
“The realm of dreams is not up here,” Torok then announced. “That which is in the great crater, this is the realm of dreams.”
Dennis thoughtfully approached Torok and shook his hair. “Are you sure Torok it’s down there?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Torok. “By our calculations, it must be down there.”
“And how do we get there now?” Jojo asked excitedly. She jumped back and forth nervously. Then she turned around, and a moment later she found the answer herself. “There’s a path,” she said, seeing a small path that seemed to lead to the rim of the crater on the horizon. And at the same time she got up.
“Wait, Jojo,” Kitty said. “What about the carriages and all?”
Jojo turned back, looking grim.
“Kitty is right,” Torok stated. “We must leave the carriages and horses here. Before we go down, we’ll secure them. Also, some people should stay here as security guards.”
“We’ll take care of that,” one of the sailors clarified. Torok nodded to him.
“My silver knights could also keep watch,” said Mik. “But for tactical reasons, I think it’s better to take them into this crater.”
“I have to agree with Mik,” Dennis stated. “The danger down there could be far greater than up here.”
“Danger? What danger?” Kitty said thoughtfully.
Dennis put a comforting arm around her shoulder. He didn’t have to tell Kitty anything. She sensed that he suspected something that was very important. And Kitty had a strange premonition too, and the closer they got to that strange place, the more frightened she got.
Most of the fellow travelers, except those who stayed with the wagons and horses, now set out. They walked slowly one after the other along the narrow path, step by step.
Kitty kept touching her mysterious key of power. Even though Dennis held her the whole time, she felt more and more uneasy with every step. Kitty recalled feeling something like this the first time she went to the doctor, before she got her very first shot.
Jojo seemed to get a completely different feeling. The closer they got to the edge of the crater, the more euphoric, joyful and full of energy Jojo became. She couldn’t wait to enter this crater.
After about an hour’s walk, the caravan finally arrived at the rim of the immense crater, just in time for sunset.
What Kitty then saw made her heart sing: From up here, when you were right on the rim of the crater, the crater looked like a huge canyon. The seemingly kilometers high cliffs shone tenderly in the evening sun. Individual trees, bushes and plants growing on the steep walls also glowed.
To the left of Kitty, Jojo and the others, a mighty waterfall tumbled down. Kitty was surprised that she didn’t hear his roar the whole time. Actually, he only started to roar when Kitty discovered him. But the majestic appearance and the way the light refracted in the water didn’t stop Kitty from brooding.
“It’s crazy here,” Kitty breathed softly. “It looks so beautiful.”
“We should go down there slowly,” Jojo demanded cautiously.
Suddenly something very, very strange happened again. Neither Kitty nor Jojo knew if it had been there all along or if they just hadn’t noticed. In any case, from up here it suddenly looked as if most of the crater was covered by a strange glass dome that covered everything below it in a semicircle.
“See that?” Kitty then asked Jojo while standing close to her and pointing at the strange dome.
“I see a city or something,” Jojo said.
Under the dome glowed the many objects that, taken together, made up a big city or something like that. You could now see more details than before from the flight. The buildings were almost all circular. In the center of the crater was a pointed hill on which most of the round buildings were arranged. It almost looked as if they would hang on top of each other, the hill was so densely built up.
Between the buildings on the hill - and in fact all the buildings looked like they were glass towers - steep narrow stairways made their way up to the very top.
And now Kitty beheld the most beautiful and most luminous building - the largest round house in this city, with the two tallest towers. The heart of this city stood at the top of the pointed mountain, and it seemed to be a castle, mighty, majestic and wondrous. It was definitely one of the most beautiful castles Kitty and Jojo have come across in Naytnal.
“Come, mistress,” Mik then said, seeming to have discovered something. “Here is a device. We can slide down that.”
Mik spotted a kind of lift right next to the roaring waterfall. There was a chariot there, and it hung on a silver steel cable. You could take the car down like an elevator. Mik couldn’t make out where the car would end up, but he trusted it.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said when she saw what Mik discovered. “What if it breaks?”
“But it’s the only way,” urged Mik. “The cliffs are too steep to climb down. We should try this.”
“Come on, Kitty,” Jojo said. “Risk is part of the game. You said so yourself.”
Of course, Jojo was right about that. And that finally convinced Kitty.
The car - a kind of cable car without a roof, only with a railing to hold on to - was big enough for everyone to ride down at once. As soon as everyone has climbed onto the device, it started moving all by itself.
“It runs by itself,” stammered Sydney.
“There’s bound to be someone downstairs running that thing,” Kitty guessed.
The rope then even led further down directly over the huge, roaring waterfall. The car slowly drove so close that a few splashes of water hit the passengers.
Suddenly the waterfall split. As if by magic, he suddenly broke apart. And in the next second, the rope the car was hanging from broke and the car fell into the abyss.
There wasn’t enough time for most people to get a shock. Because not even two seconds later the car landed completely soft and safe somewhere in a cave. At least it was dark in here. The roar of the waterfall became noticeably quieter, and only a faint ray of light shimmered in from somewhere.
“Oof!” Natalie said.
“Anyone hurt?” Dennis called.
There was a low murmur, from which Dennis concluded that everyone really had landed safely down here.
“Great!” Sydney said then. “How many meters was that? That must have been endless. How could we still land so safely?”
Sydney looked at Kitty. However, she smiled back.
“It wasn’t me,” Kitty said. “Although I don’t rule out the possibility that magic is involved here.”
“We should find an exit,” urged Mik.
Nobody seemed to notice that Mik was getting more and more nervous, almost like he was waiting for something.
“Over there!” Jojo suddenly shouted.
Jojo had discovered a small gate or something like that. Actually, it was just an archway, without the gate that should normally sit underneath. She hurriedly ran ahead and stomped out of the strange grotto, followed by Kitty, Dennis, Sydney, Natalie and Mik, as well as all the others.
“Is this the realm of dreams now?” asked Sydney, walking next to Dennis.
“Still not,” Dennis said. “The border is probably under the glass dome.”
“This glass dome shouldn’t have to prevent us from finding what we’re looking for,” Mik said proudly.
Dennis made a meaningful gesture towards him. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said quietly to Kitty. And Kitty nodded to him.
Both Kitty and Dennis had had this strange premonition for a long time. Something told them that danger might be lurking beneath the glass dome.
After walking on for a while, Jojo and Mik arrived directly at the glass dome first, closely followed by Kitty and all the other fellow passengers.
Kitty felt very carefully over the glass. It was chilly. It felt cool but comfortable. At the same time, however, it somehow radiated something that made Kitty anxious. Kitty looked up. The glass dome seemed to have no end. It had to be immensely high. And if Kitty hadn’t seen from afar that it was a dome, she might have thought it was an endless glass wall.
Jojo, who was a few steps in front of Kitty, also felt over the wall.
“Entrance...“, Jojo whispered. “We need an entrance.”
Jojo looked questioningly along the wall. There seemed nowhere to get in.
“Will you conjure up an entrance?” Mik asked her. But Jojo shook his head.
“I don’t know any spells,” she said.
“And if you take your sword?“, Mik considered. “Just cut a hole in the wall with your sword.”
Kitty, Sydney and Dennis were now a little further away from Jojo and Mik and were looking for an entrance in the other direction, while Natalie just walked over to Jojo and Mik to see what they found so far.
“I think that’s a signal,” Dennis said. “If the dome won’t let us in, maybe we should stay out.”
“But there are important answers in there,” mused Sydney.
“Hey guys!” Jojo suddenly shouted. “Here is an entrance! Exactly here! We can go in!”
Sydney, Dennis and Kitty hurriedly made their way to Jojo’s location.
Natalie was already there. She saw what Jojo was doing. Jojo tried to be quick so no one would notice, except for Mik of course. But she wasn’t fast enough. Natalie had just seen how she stowed her water sword in the magic bag again.
“Jojo... what did you do?” Natalie asked quietly.
“Woe, you say something!“, she warned Jojo. “You’re going to be in the most trouble.” She scowled, pausing for a while. Then she continued: “You didn’t see anything, do you understand? The opening had been there all along, got it?”
Before Natalie could even reply, Kitty, Dennis and Sydney arrived, and behind them came the Silver Knights, followed by the other passengers.
“So,” Jojo said. “Then let’s go.”
“Don’t, Jojo,” Dennis said. “Stay outside. Believe me, it’s not good to go in there.”
“Oh, Dennis, you scaredy-cat,” laughed Jojo. “After all, that’s what we’ve been looking for all along.
“Jojo, don’t!” Kitty exclaimed. “Stop it Dennis. Please! Mik, tell her something.”
But neither Jojo nor Mik listened to Kitty and Dennis. They marched in through the opening with quick, determined steps. Resolutely, they finally entered the strange, mysterious glass dome through the opening. And Kitty looked after Jojo and she saw that she wasn’t scared at all.
“Jojo!” Kitty exclaimed desperately. “Come back!”
The silver knights then followed Jojo and Mik under the glass dome. And a little later - maybe she didn’t even know why - Natalie ran in too. She actually wanted to stay with Kitty, Dennis and Sydney. But something just pulled her along with Jojo and Mik and the silver knights.
Kitty looked after Jojo helplessly. Jojo turned to her. She smiled. Maybe it wasn’t that dangerous after all? Jojo waved. She called out something, but the sound was practically swallowed up by the thick glass. You couldn’t understand anything.
Suddenly Torok came running. “Where are they? Where are Jojo and the lord?” he called excitedly.
“They went in,” Kitty said desperately, pointing to the small opening in the wall.
“Oh, no,” Torok said.
“What? What is it?” Kitty stammered, clearly nervous.
“We just learned about the danger posed by this glass dome. You have to know, the realm of dreams is not usually located under such a glass dome. It’s that dome that makes it so dangerous.”
Kitty looked back at Jojo. She still stood there, waving. Kitty called after her anxiously, “Jojo! Get out of there, please!”
But Jojo didn’t seem to hear anything. She slowly lifted her arm, slowly moving it to her ear. Then Jojo seemed to say something, but you couldn’t understand what she was saying. No sound penetrated from the inside either, just as little as from the outside in.
Kitty looked at Jojo in surprise. Suddenly she looked at Mik. Apparently he was standing in the same spot the whole time. But why? Kitty took a closer look. Then she discovered that Mik took a step. He walked very slowly.
“Is there water under there? They move in slow motion,” Sydney suddenly stated.
“No,” Torok said, deeply affected. “It is too late. We can no longer save them.”
“What?” Now Kitty was really getting scared. She knocked hard on the pane. But Jojo didn’t react. Very, very slowly she lifted her arm down from her ear. Very, very slowly she turned around, and after it took her minutes to take the next step, the image almost seemed to stop.
“It’s the time,” Torok said with a very sad expression. “Time holds everyone who goes under this dome. It’s time running so slowly down there that everything seems to come to a standstill. And Jojo and Mik and Natalie, as well as the silver knights, are now prisoners of time. Irrevocable.”
“No...” Kitty stammered. Tears ran down her cheeks. “That must not be. That must not have happened. Jojo, come out of there, please...”
