It would take a while for Nick to figure out what was happening to him, but in fact the magic controlling his
mobility or immobility was lunar in nature. As the moon revolved around the earth its gravitational influence
is affecting the spell on the silver bound young man.
At the moment he was frozen as a statue, the moon was on the far side of the earth relative to the mansion.
Mitch had been transformed into a bronze statue, and the moon's movement had no discernible influence on him.
As the moon had started to rise, Nick had started to twitch, and as it climbed higher in the sky, Nick found
himself totally mobile. He moved a bit stiffly, but he moved. The hallway was empty when he entered it.
Nick looked back the way he and Mitch had come, and further down the hall toward the unexplored portion of the
mansion. Nick started down the unexplored hallway in search of the others.
The mansion seemed to be bigger than he thought. Passages turned off and seemed to go on forever. Each room
he looked into was filled with varied statues. All were humanoid, but not all were human. There were satyrs,
centaurs, mermen and half-human creatures for which Nick didn't know their names. He found staircases that
spiraled up and down unknown towers. There were stairwells downward and other upward, but everywhere he
searched he found nothing moving.
At last, Nick reached the end of the winding passageway. There was a tiny door set in the wall much like the
one that Alice found when she went down the rabbit hole. He looked around for a table with a vial and piece of
cake. There wasn't any. He got down on all fours to open the tiny door and look through it...