Hey, sorry it took a bit longer to update again, I was on holiday in Germany for 2 weeks, then I started a new job... then didn't allow me to upload the story... ;) Hope you all enjoy!

Madness Chapter 10

A sign swung gently in the wind. It was ashamed to proclaim that the door it hung above was currently the one leading to the Broken, rather than the Mended Drum. However, Rincewind didn't need to consult the sign to know this. The roof of the infamous inn was missing.

"Welcome to our lovely walled beer-garden, Uberwald style! It's the latest thing!" he heard the inn-keeper shout at them from inside the burnt-out shell. And who was Rincewind to refuse?

And so Rincewind, the Librarian and the luggage went about their mission over a lukewarm pint of Morporkian ale... slightly alcoholic Ankh water... actually, better just not to think about it.

"Inn-keeper!" Rincewind cried out, "You wouldn't happen to have seen a complete mad-man come through here, would you?"

The burley man who had served them gave Rincewind a blank look. Finally he said, "Plenty," and made a sweeping gesture with his arm that indicated that he thought anyone who stepped foot inside his "beer garden" had evidently lost all their marbles in the Ankh and had decided to go diving for them.

On the other side of Ankh-Morpork Ponder Stibbons' and Commander Vimes' search was not going much better, either. Vimes had spent quite a while swearing after the escape from the Library. Their group had been torn apart when they were set upon by a group of giant ducks some student wizards had been practising on and now it was just Ponder and Vimes.

At the moment they were both standing in a lane and Vimes had ordered him to keep an eye out for little old men with brooms. Actually ordered him! The cheek! Ponder decided he would only go along with this since the world was in danger, but otherwise he would have sent that little watchman right off into another dimension of course! Ha!

Ponder watched with mild interest as the Duke of Ankh took off his boots, then closed his eyes and wondered around the street a bit until he came to the entrance of a small alleyway.

"The back of the temple backs onto this alleyway!" Vimes shouted.

"We just need to find the right garden wall and then...," but the commander never got to finish his sentence as right in front of him a small, wizened old man with a broom stepped out of the dark shadows of the alley into the light of the main street. The two started arguing almost immediately and Ponder walked over to join them.

"How can you refuse to help us? I mean, you helped me last time! I don't understand what you're saying; history is not going to change? What do you mean, this makes no sense!," Vimes was shouting at the little old man.

Ponder briefly wondered if he could use such amounts of angry energy to power a special experiment involving HEX, a red hot poker and plum pudding. Dismissing such thoughts he returned his attention politely back to the conversation at hand, hoping to find some word he might be able to pick up on that would allow him to enter the conversation in a knowledgeable fashion.

"Either going back in time changes history and it has to be put right, or it... it doesn't... I don't understand," Vimes gave up in exasperation.

Ah, finally a statement Ponder understood.

"I concur," he said, "This makes no sense."

The little old man ignored him though and remained focused on Vimes, "Look, the times are moving on. What century is this? The Fruitbat? Everything is quantum now," the old man said and lit a cigarette.

"What kind of explanation is that?" Vimes growled and turned to Ponder.

But Ponder had found a word to latch onto, it was 'quantum'. He smiled (this was a nice contrast to Vimes' scowl) and happily launched into an explanation, "Well, the whole Disc did start to change in nature after some event we can't quite pin point in recent history. The Disc, well, ... some large event made it quantum. We hadn't seen quantum before, but suddenly we discovered it, and others were suddenly noticing it too. As if us discovering the theory of quantum suddenly made quantum a reality."

Meanwhile the old man had finished his cigarette and taken up his broom in both hands. He proceeded to shoo at them with his broom.

"You're in a loop in time, Commander. Be on your way will you, so that history can take its course."

"How confident are you that it will? What have we got to do to make sure it doesn't change? There is a mad-man out there, lose on the streets of Ankh-Morpork and earlier, I mean a few decades in the future, he was, er... will be... threatening to destroy the whole world in order to get revenge on one man! And apparently he has the means to!" Vimes yelled.

Stibbons had spotted a flaw in the bald old man's logic and was eager to butt in, "But you said the flow of history was now quantum, how come it isn't this time? I mean, what if I now actively tried to change the flow? Say, killed someone's grandfather, or hey, killed my parents or something like that? What then, what are you going to do then?"

"Hit you over the head with my broom, that's what! Now bugger off!" the little man said.

Once the old man had shooed them out onto the street and left, Vimes turned to Ponder.

"He was scared, I could smell it. That last thing you said, that was the crux I think. Could he have been worried that quantum might happen and break this loop in history he's talking about?"

"Possibly," Ponder said, since he didn't want to commit himself to an interpretation. It was a reflex. Wizards didn't like being proved wrong by reality.

"And could your new gadget thing cause that?" Vimes continued.

"No," Ponder replied simply. Vimes deflated somewhat.

"Well, it could of course," Stibbons added, "Everything is quantum. But if one grain of sand drops slightly differently than Destiny would have it, is that going to change the course of history as we know it? Probably not. My new device is a machine of sorts, it shouldn't have a mind of its own. It's only a demon. If I'm honest I'd go with one of us being the problem. If one small thought, one niggling feeling falls differently in our brain, I'm staying with the falling grain of sand metaphor here, in case you were getting confus..."

"Get on with it!" Vimes growled.

"Ok, right. Well, our actions might end up spiralling out of control if we change our mind at one crucial moment," Stibbons said.

"Trousers of time theory?" Vimes said blankly.

"Yes!" Stibbons said, "Except now with added quantum! The two trouser legs exist already, both at the same time. But only one can be a reality, the other will cease to exist completely. It won't exist in another universe even. Cause of quantum..."

"I will admit, I'm a copper, I'm not a the sharpest knife in the drawer. What does this mean? How should we act to make sure that the present we know keeps on existing as well as preventing the Disc from being destroyed?" Vimes asked, "That's what I was hoping to get out of the monk."

"Well, that's probably one and the same thing," Ponder answered, "All we can do is think hard about any choices we make. One of us is likely to come to a crossroad at some point in decision making. Speaking of which, what do we do now? We must think carefully about our options."

Vimes and Ponder looked at each other, a hint of panic in both their eyes.