It had become death Itself, in a way. And when death was weak-ened, so was the Lone One. It fell to the sea floor, and it opened for It and closed on It afterward. And there It lies bound."" 'Bound'?" Kit said. "S'reee, when we had our last run-in with the Lone Power, It didn't seem very bound to us. It had a whole alternate universe of Its own, and when It came into this one to get us, It went around tearing things up any way It liked. If It is bound, how could It have also been running loose in Manhattan?"S'reee blew, a sober sound. "It's the usual confusion about time," she said. "All the great Powers exist outside it, and all we usually see of Them are the places and moments where and when They dip into the timeflow we're inhabiting. This world has always been an annoyance to the Lone OneA K gets frustrated here a lot—so It visits often, in many forms. From inside our timeflow, it can look as if the Lone Power is bound in one place– time and free in another . . . and both appearances are true." S'reee rolled and stretched in the water. "Meanwhile, outside the timeflow, where things don't have to happen one after another, the Lone One is eternally rebelling and eternally defeated—"DEEP WIZARDRY 189"We gave It a chance to do something else, when we fought last," Nita said. "We offered It the option to stop being a dark power—""And it worked," S'reee said, sounding very pleased. "Didn't you know? It's also eternally redeemed. But meantime we have to keep fighting the battles, even though the war's decided. The Lone One's going to take a long while to complete Its choice, and if we get lazy or sloppy about handling Its thrashing around, a lot of people are going to die.""The sea floor," Nita said, "has been shaken up a lot lately." "That's one symptom that tells us the TwelveSong needs to be reenacted," S'reee said. "We do the Song at intervals anyway, to make sure the story's never forgotten. But when the Lone Power gets troublesome—as It seems to be doing now—we reenact the Song, and bind It quiet again."
