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  Table of Contents

  THEME

  PROLOGUE

  MARK CHAOS

  EVENTUALLY

  CHAOS’S STORY

  THE GALAXY

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  PLANET DESPAIR

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  THE GHOST SHIPS

  HELJANITA

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  THE TIME WAVE

  DARKSCAR

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  ON AETERNA

  THE BATTLE OF THE TIME GAP

  AETERNA

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  CAIN RAYSHADE

  INTERSTELLAR MELODRAMA

  HYPERSPACE

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  SKYWOLF

  MORE INTERSTELLAR MELODRAMA

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  DEATHDANCER

  INTERSTELLAR MELODRAMA AGAIN

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  THE GHOSTS ON DESPAIR

  HAWKANGEL THE BATTLE OF SARACA

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  MEANWHILE

  DUEL

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  SHADOW OF A DOUBT

  DYING ON DESPAIR

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  WHILE THE STARS WERE STILL

  THE END OF THE WAR

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  DAWNSTAR

  ADAM DECEMBER

  MOONGLOW OF AMIA

  CHAOS’S STORY CONCLUDED

  EPILOGUE

  Landmarks

  Cover

  “I made you,” said Heljanita calmly. “I made everything that you are, with the help of the crooked wheel. I needed a man to win me the Beast war; a man to smash the Humans and at the same time to make sure that the Beasts did not win.

  “So I found a man who was nobody; a man nobody wanted to know, and who wanted to know nobody.

  “I turned a pathetic nonentity into a deadly weapon…You were the Beast war, Lord Chaos.”

  Faced with this truth about himself, Mark Chaos had to make a decision. He held the balance between Heljanita and Darkscar, between chaos and absolute order. And Mark Chaos had to choose, while the whole Universe—past, present, future—tottered toward disaster…

  BRIAN M. STABLEFORD has also written:

  CRADLE OF THE SUN

  THE BLIND WORM

  THE DAYS OF GLORY (Dies Irae I)

  IN THE KINGDOM OF THE BEASTS (Dies Irae II)

  BRIAN STABLEFORD

  DIES IRAE III

  ACE BOOKS

  A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

  1120 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N. Y. 10036

  DAY OF WRATH

  Copyright ©, 1971, by Brian M. Stableford All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Kelly Freas.

  For Christine

  Printed in U.S.A.

  THEME

  This book tells the story of the confrontation between Darkscar of Despair and Heljanita the toymaker, and the eventual results of their interference with time.

  PROLOGUE

  There was a time when the galactic wheel was in the safe hands of the high lords of the House of Stars, and the society envisaged by Adam December seemed capable of going on forever.

  But in another world, in another time, a toymaker named Heljanita devised a machine which could sap the energy of a planet and hurl him ten thousand years back into its past. He came partly to escape from a world he hated, partly to build the sort of world he wanted. By distorting the past, and altering it to suit his own purposes, he hoped to achieve the double objective of condemning the world from which he had come to total oblivion, and replacing it in the future with an opposite world. For order, he wished to substitute disorder.

  There was no instant reaction either in the universe he left behind or in the one to which he came. Nor, indeed, was there any reaction from the path of time which he was so intent on diverting. But reactions came, eventually.

  In Heljanita’s own time, the disciples of perfect order were quick to realize the dangers which tampering with time implied. They worked desperately on their own time machines, to follow Heljanita and stop him. The first of these to be completed carried two men back to die ten thousandth year of Adam December’s civilization. One of them was Darkscar of Despair. The other was a man whose name remained undisclosed, who died early in the fight against Heljanita, and is not concerned with the final confrontation between the two. Darkscar expected more help, but it never arrived. The universe which sent him—the Utopia of perfect happiness and harmony—no longer existed. Heljanita had already changed the course of time. The connection between the two universes was irrevocably snapped. Darkscar the collector was stranded in time, with no home and no past, his mission made meaningless. He adopted a new mission—the mission of opposing the second part of Heljanita’s plan and preventing the toymaker from reducing galactic civilization to chaos.

  Darkscar proposed also to bring this galaxy to the order and contentment which his own had achieved. And so the long struggle began, with a phase of gathering strength and accumulating power.

  Heljanita had the advantage here because he was prepared, while Darkscar was not. Heljanita also had a slight advantage due to his earlier arrival in the galaxy of Adam December’s civilization.

  The toymaker’s plan was already clear in his mind. The lever which he would use to reduce the social structure of the galaxy to ruins was the mark of the beast, the crux ansata birthmark which distinguished the Beast races of men from the Human. The crux ansata on the palms and neck was the mark of Adam December’s men: the men bom in tissue vats and gene banks, made from animal flesh in order to claim the stars. The Humans could never have done it themselves. They had been bound to the Earth for too long. Adam December changed the name of his world to Home, and built the Beasts to do what the Humans could not, and populate the star-worlds with men. That Adam December’s dream became an actuality was due largely to Moonglow of Amia, himself a Beast, whose work stabilized the culture which Adam December devised.

  When Heljanita arrived, the mark of the beast was simply a fact. It was hardly even noticed. But there were men who were conscious of its existence, men who felt the meaning of the distinguishing mark. Heljanita took it upon himself to use these men, to subvert them to his own purposes. With the aid of one of his toys—a hypnotic device shaped like a crooked wheel—he enlisted several men to his cause, in different ways. His chief weapon, or at least the most overt of them in the early days, was a psychotic visionary named Ralph Eagleheart. Eagleheart had an impressive manner, and a genius with words which made him the perfect leader. Eagleheart was to lead the Beasts in a war against the Human race, while Heljanita employed the crooked wheel to insure that the war had the right result.

  It was through the second son of Starcastle of Home, David Starbird, that Heljanita acted in order to start the war. Encouraged by the crooked wheel, Starbird stole Angeline of Sula away from her reactionary, and in some ways primitive, home world. Her pledged husband, Daniel Skywolf, the Beast lord of Sula, demanded satisfaction. The intrusion of Eagleheart first complicated and then perverted a straightforward affair of honor.

  Both Humans and Beasts prepared to fight a strictly honorable war—a duel of spaceships. The code of honor was always paramount in determining their conduct, but because the situation was quite unprecedented the personality of Eagleheart began to be imposed upon the interpretation of the code.

  In the early days, it was very much a battle for glory and not for victory. They were days of new grandeur and a new kind of heroism. The Beasts, inveterate hero-worshipers, loved the war right from the start. Only those actually involved in the fig
hting had any doubts at this stage.

  Arrayed on the Human side were the four sons of Starcastle, the high lords of the galaxy. David Starbird commanded the fleet, although Alexander Blackstar was the heir to the House of Stars, being the elder brother. The younger brothers, John Starflare and Christopher Rainstar, distinguished themselves far less in the actual fighting, but by virtue of this position they were better known than Martin Hawkangel, Neil Sunpiper and the rest of the minor Human lords.

  The commander of the Beast fleet was Ralph Eagleheart of Chrysocyon, despite the fact that it was Skywolfs war. Eagleheart was universally reckoned the greater leader and the better tactician. And, in truth, he had more to do with the genesis of the war than the rather gullible Sulan. Best loved of the Beast heroes were Richard Stormwind of Sa-bella, Judson Deathdancer of Falcor and Robert Hornwing of Ligia. Perhaps not quite as charismatic, but of similar abilities, were Mark Chaos of Aquila, Cain Rayshade of Aurita, Stephen Warlock of Andola and John Redmask of Nager.

  The days of glory did not last. Eagleheart, with the dedicated help of Mark Chaos, began the process of subverting the war to their own ends and, unknowingly, to Heljanita’s. Doubts grew and friction sprang up between certain of the Beast lords, but they were too deeply embroiled in the situation, too captivated by Eagleheart’s words to think of calling a halt. The only man who caused serious trouble was Stormwind of Sabella, and that was more because of vanity than because of conscience. He probably did more harm than good to the moral statement of his case, but he did jeopardize the Beasts’ chances of winning. After the death of his friend Saul Slavesdream, however, he threw himself into the war once more, with such determination and effect that the collapse of the Human army became imminent very quickly. The days of death and determination replaced the days of glory.

  Heroes rapidly followed one another to the grave. Stormwind killed Blackstar and then died himself during a duel with David Starbird. Cain Rayshade fatally wounded Star-bird. Robert Hornwing committed suicide.

  The Humans were driven back to Home, to take refuge in the domed city of the House of Stars, the supposedly unconquerable fortress. There, they quarreled between themselves. Christopher Rainstar left, his anger extending to giving information to the Beasts which permitted Mark Chaos and Judson Deathdancer to penetrate the defenses of the House of Stars. There they made a pact with John Mind-myth to deliver the House of Stars into the hands of the Beasts.

  On the eve of the battle for the House of Stars, the Human defenses were seriously weakened when Martin Hawkangel and his contingent of ships and men followed the example set by Rainstar and abandoned the House of Stars to its fate. The battle itself was long and costly. The Humans, in their last refuge, the fortress which had ruled the galaxy, fought savagely to the last. The Beasts were forced to retaliate with comparable hatred and bitterness, and the fight turned into a massacre which included the women and children of the city. John Mindmyth and those designated by him were left alone, and Blackstar’s widow and younger sister both survived.

  Eagleheart then abandoned all pretexts and attempted to infect all the star-worlds with the genocidal slaughter of the Humans. The attempt was successful at first but quickly faded as sanity returned, and although the galactic civilization suffered extreme distortion, and established chains of authority were either weakened or obliterated, Eagle-heart’s ambitions remained unfulfilled.

  The Beast war fleet broke up, almost all the Beasts sickened and ashamed of what they had done. Further trouble was averted when Eagleheart met his death at the hands of his own wife, Gloriana of Chrysocyon. The surviving daughter of Starcastle, Dawnstar, met her death at the same time. The world of Chrysocyon, at one time the hub of Beast culture, was plagued with troubles as murder followed murder for several years. The focus of galactic organization shifted from Chrysocyon and Home to Falcor and Aurita, two economically powerful, but slightly less prepossessing worlds. Such authority as remained descended upon the Beast lords Cain Rayshade and Judson Deathdancer, who became the figureheads of the Aurita-Falcorian Confederacy.

  Daniel Skywolf might also have claimed a share in the new order, but Sula had always been an isolated, introspective world, and he chose to let it remain so. Sabella and Ligia, powerful worlds without heirs, fell reluctantly into line.

  The Empire of the House of Stars was over, and the galaxy was now the Kingdom of the Beasts.

  John Mindmyth assumed control of the House of Stars, but nothing remained to rule. He remained an outcast a long way from the center of the new civilization. Christopher Rainstar and Martin Hawkangel never returned but found a new home out in the rim stars where no one ever went. They remained quite isolated, no longer a real part of the galaxy.

  Mark Chaos of Aquila disappeared completely from the scene, pushed by forces beyond his control into a nebular formation on the edge of the galaxy known as the Time Gap, in a ship whose computers were incapable of taking him out again.

  Heljanita had prepared the universe for his takeover. The stability of Adam December’s society was gone. The unity of mankind was totally shattered. The galaxy was already on the brink of chaos, awaiting only a little more destruction, a little more distortion. Heljanita devoted years to the building of ships and “toys”: humanoid robots with intelligence of their own, but strict limitations concerning commands from their maker.

  Darkscar of Despair, with no crooked wheel, and little time for preparation, had been unable to do anything during the Beast war. But he had not been idle. On a planet called Despair, deep in the Time Gap, he had been building and making ready. As Heljanita devoted himself to constructing a fleet of great size and power, Darkscar began enlisting help in the Kingdom of the Beasts. Rayshade and Deathdancer agreed to fight Heljanita, but only for their own reasons. Darkscar considered both to be inherently weak men. Skywolf refused even to listen, but that did not disturb Darkscar greatly. He had no use for stupid men either.

  Mark Chaos was a different sort of man. He was strong and clever, exactly the kind of man Darkscar wanted to support him. But Chaos refused to pledge himself to Dark-scar’s cause, at least for the time being. However, Chaos’s perpetual avoidance of decision left Darkscar with at least some hope, and he kept trying. But Darkscar was not a direct man. He was a meddler and a dabbler. Although he was a biological engineer of genius, and capable of building analogues of minds in metal plates, he could find no constructive use for his talents. He collected the minds of dead men, and built a race of frog people to populate Despair, but he never came to terms with the idea of single-minded dedication to war and the defeat of Heljanita. Although totally committed, he was quite unfitted for his chosen role. And so Darkscar started a long way behind Heljanita and remained there.

  His collection of dead men proved an invaluable store of information, but his big advantage of surprise was wasted in his earliest, crude attempts to thwart Heljanita’s plans. Several of the early clashes involved Mark Chaos, whom Heljanita also considered important—and dangerous. Heljanita’s apparent determination to destroy Chaos made Dark-scar all the more determined to recruit the Aquilan to his own side. Chaos, as always, remained stubbornly uncommitted.

  Darkscar persuaded both Cain Rayshade and Judson Deathdancer to invest time and money in the construction of vast ships of Darkscar’s own design, with which to fight the toys when the time came. But the other rich worlds, Sabella and Ligia prominent among them, refused to be jockeyed into similar projects, mainly due to the natural distrust which accumulates when there is a lack of leadership.

  Because the Beasts had their own problems to attend to, and because the weak balance of the confederacy led to a great deal of inner conflict, the Beast fleet grew far more slowly than the toy fleet. Everything seemed to favor Heljanita.

  Time dragged by, while Heljanita’s strength increased steadily, and the disorder he had already planted handicapped and plagued the galaxy.

  But there were other factors in the situation, slower to gain effect, but far mor
e powerful than anything any man could produce. Time itself had been altered. The Time Wave —the thin thread which bound the temporal microcosm to the cosmic time with which the galaxy was concerned—had been distorted. A reaction from the Time Wave was certain to come, and if that failed to restore balance, then a reaction from the galaxy itself. And any distortion of the time dimensions was also likely to affect the Time Gap, which housed a reactive entity whose spatial manifestation was the planet Despair.

  Larger forces will be brought into play than Heljanita suspects. The effects of his tampering have escalated into realms he does not even know exist. The very least of all the factors in the situation are the individual Beasts. But such is the delicacy of the balance, and the colossal effects of the most minor causes, that among the Beasts are the most vital factors of all.

  MARK CHAOS

  Mark Chaos is a man who has seen a great deal, a man who might know too much, from Heljanita’s point of view.

  During the Beast war, Mark Chaos was the schemer behind the progress of Eagleheart’s dreams. He alone of Eagle-heart’s followers knew what Eagleheart wanted to do. Only he was prepared to help fulfill those ambitions. Mark Chaos was and is a most unusual Beast. He had none of Eagle-heart’s power with words, and his small, stocky figure was nothing compared to Eagleheart’s tall, aristocratic frame and handsome face. But Mark Chaos smoothed Eagleheart’s path. Chaos was always there at the right time, to agree and add support, to. conceal objections and remove obstacles. His was the task of finding and diverting situations which might prove troublesome. When everyone else was driving Stormwind further and further from the Beast cause, it was Chaos who gave him an excuse to come back. His contribution was always covert, but it was very significant.