Beneath the Surface: The Lost Boy (Volume 1)

By Erren Grey Wolf

An unwanted life is born from a traumatic death. Out of painful grief for the tragic loss of their beloved mother, Sean angrily blames and abandons his baby brother in the forest. He runs away hunting to escape his sorrow, never realizing the full consequences of his heartless act. The mysterious Queen of the Forest finds the child crying piteously and cannot resist comforting him. While she holds the tender child lovingly in her arms, she gazes into his future, but upon witnessing visions of horrific events, she steals him away into the Otherworld to protect him. When Sean returns and finds Erren gone, guilt consumes him. His repentant mind opens up enough to see his mother’s spirit telling him, “The forest took him.” Sean begins his noble quest to find his lost brother and to right the wrong he had done, unaware that his determined search is awakening his latent telepathic gift. He has a spiritual crisis as the forest becomes haunted with voices condemning him for his thoughtless crime. There is an unseen battle of wills as the mystical Queen Elaya tries to stop the guilty one from taking her little boy.

Excerpt:

Sean was like a foxhunter poised upon his horse with his hounds all around him, waiting for the blare of the trumpet to set him loose after the fleeing fox. Despite his doubts, Sean’s quest had taken him over into a realm where logic seemed to hold no sway and he was now as bound to his chosen task as if the magic of the mythical Wild Hunt had caught hold of him. With her last words, his dead mother had pulled back her bow like the great Celtic Goddess of the Black Forest, Abnoba the Huntress, and had launched her eldest son like a shining arrow of hope into the dark forest to find her little boy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erren Grey Wolf
• Release date: Apr 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301651313

Erren Grey Wolf

I was born in York, north of Toronto, Canada. My parents were immigrants from Great Britain. My mother is Scottish, my father is English, but both have a strong Irish ancestry. I was conceived in Durham County, England, before my parents immigrated to Canada, so I have joked in the past that I was manufactured in England and exported to Canada. Of course, that is just the physical vehicle to which I am referring. My Mum and Dad did not give birth to my soul, which is a great deal older than my Earthly vessel. About my name: The character, Erren Archer, has the same first name as myself, but that doesn't mean we are both male. We are not. Though “Erren” means the same thing as “Erin,” I’ve noticed it has been used as both a girl’s name and a boy’s name and even as a last name. “Erren” is just a more ancient word for Ireland. There is an ancient Irish text called, “The Lebor Gabala Erren,” from 1150 A.D., which translates as “The Book of Invasions of Ireland.” Alternatively, it has been spelled as, “Lebor Gabála Érenn.” Also, people mistakenly believe my last name is, “Wolf,” but my last name happens to be two words, “Grey Wolf,” and I have no middle name.

Book preview

B E N E A T H

THE SURFACE

Book One:

THE LOST BOY

By Erren Grey Wolf

Smashwords edition

What others are saying about

THE LOST BOY

(First edition The Lost Boy)

In her debut, Grey Wolf delivers a highly detailed, densely populated sci-fi adventure.

-- Kirkus Indie Review

(Second edition The Lost Boy)

The story gets off to a reasonably slow start with an introduction to Sean and his family, but this set up is essential for what comes after. The story really takes off when Sean makes a terrible mistake that will change his brother’s life and in turn his own.

All in all I would say this was a very well planned out book with a captivating and emotional storyline.

-- Sharon Stevenson,

author of the Gallows series

(Book One: Blood Bound)

Official Website:

http://www.errengreywolf.ca

B E N E A T H

THE SURFACE

Book One:

THE LOST BOY

By Erren Grey Wolf

Copyright © 2012 Erren Grey Wolf.

Cover and illustrations by Erren Grey Wolf.

I took the Wolf’s head image from an acrylic painting

I created called: Rest In Peace. Copyright © 1997.

All rights reserved.

Cover photo adapted by author from

roots-of-big-old-tree_w725_h544:

a public domain image courtesy of

www.public-domain-image.com.

Published by Erren Grey Wolf for Smashwords.

Third edition May 2013.

ISBN: 9781301651313

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

MAPS

1…OUTER MIDGARD

2…THE UNITED NATIONS OF CANADA

3…INNER FREYA

4…TITAN (SPACE STATION)

B E N E A T H

THE SURFACE

Book One:

THE LOST BOY

By Erren Grey Wolf

DEDICATION

I dedicate

this saga, this story,

to my dear father,

who supported me

when the seas of life

were grave and stormy.

I appreciate all

you have ever done for me.

Thank you very much.

You were always so good to me.

You are the best father

and the nicest human being

in the whole universe.

The world is a better place

because you lived in it.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

Beneath the Surface

Of all that you see

Is another world

And another me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MAPS

DEDICATION

BENEATH THE SURFACE

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: LIFE IN TITAN

1 THE DARK SIDE OF TITAN

2 THE LIGHTNING BOLT FROM GOD

PART TWO: THE SENTIENT FOREST

THE ARCHER FARMHOUSE

3 SPIRITED AWAY

4 THE LOST BOY

5 THE VISIT

6 SEAN’S QUEST

7 THE HAUNTED FOREST

8 THE ETHERIC PALACE

9 IN THE MORNING

10 HARSH REALITY

11 THE WOLVES HUNT AGAIN

12 THE HAUNTING OF SEAN

13 A SPIRITUAL CRISIS

EPILOGUE

BOOKS BY ERREN GREY WOLF

CONNECT WITH ME ONLINE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

APPENDIX

PROLOGUE

I had this story in my head for about twenty years before I actually typed my written notes into my computer in 2004. Sean and Erren, the two brothers, were born inside my mind in the early 1980s and their story just grew from there. I had trouble concentrating on doing my homework in high school, but I had no trouble at all daydreaming about the scenes in these books. When I have had discussions with other people and my mind has wandered off somewhere, this story is where it usually wandered off. I thought I would finally write it all down and show everyone where I have really been living all this time.

I was born and raised in Canada, but my parents were immigrants from Great Britain, so I wrote about a future Canada with British overtones. I like to believe a great country like Canada will continue into the future. I do not want to see it destroyed from without or from within. A few thousand years from now, before the expanding sun destroys our precious Earth, Canadians may uproot their beloved country and transplant it on another world.

I have one comment to make about the White Bird of Death: I heard stories of how some people had seen mysterious white birds flying in the sky after the death of Joan of Arc and one of the Catholic Popes, so I used it as part of my story’s mythology.

I researched the descriptions of auras, elementals, and thought-forms from really good books on the subject and I filled in the rest by conjecture. I simplified some. The aura, for example, is far more complicated than what I have written in this story. Barbara Bowers, Ph.D., has described them as having many layers, but I reduced it to two. In the case of the chakras, I used the popular rainbow version instead of C.W. Leadbeater’s more accurate descriptions, which are far too complicated for a fictional novel. (See Appendix at the back for more information if you are curious about subjects many consider boring.)

As for the down-to-earth, practical side of things, I wish to thank my Dad, a veteran of the Royal Air Force and a metallurgical engineer, who is an intelligent and wise man, for allowing me to pick his brains for this book (and I picked his brains mightily!) He was my technical and military advisor, among other things. My dear father does not believe in the aforementioned metaphysical subjects, so it would surprise you to know he had once said to me, I could’ve sworn something was sitting on the arm of the couch, watching me while I was reading … but I don’t believe in fairies. I love his comment! (No, he is not mentally ill. He is the sane one in the family!)

It took a long time for this story to make the transition from my imagination to the written word, and so, dear readers, at last I say to you:

Welcome to my world.

INTRODUCTION

This is a story about two unusually gifted brothers who live thousands of years in the future on a distant world called, Midgard. For those who are interested in the background their story is set within, I write this introduction detailing the events of the future of humankind:

EXODUS

Our Earth: destroyed! And in its wake

The humans fled from their mistake.

The Earth was poisoned from their wars;

The world was wounded, bleeding, sores.

The humans took their animals

Like Noah’s ark in grander scales.

They left their bleeding home behind.

Too bad they’d not left hate behind.

In God’s own mercy, in God’s grace,

To those who’d not fled into space,

He caused the sun to grow and grow:

To pull the Earth into its glow.

As Nostradamus had once said,

In his predictions few had read,

The sun engulfed the wounded Earth;

So great was Terra’s time of dearth.

But – Oh! – the torment ‘fore its death!

Before the Earth took its last breath.

As sickness, famine, drought, and more

Caused all to pray and thus implore.

And though it took a thousand years,

God’s mercy did then dry their tears.

The fires spread forth to thus enfold

The sickened Earth within its hold.

Our Earth, our home, in this way died.

The gods and humans all had cried,

But those who fled into the sky

Did look back not through teary eye.

Two brave new worlds ahead them waits:

Those worlds did open up their gates

To welcome in the tired, the new;

They landed on the shores, not few.

Two brand new worlds with one great sun!

It was like finding God’s Eden.

Such hope and joy was in their hearts

To find two earths on their star charts!

They vowed to never fight again

With dirty bombs to kill and maim,

But something followed close behind

To undermine the pure of mind …

THE NEW WORLDS

Nostradamus’ predictions were correct: the sun expanded and engulfed Mercury and Venus before it destroyed the Earth in a final conflagration in the thirty-eighth century AD. Mars lived on afterwards, but was not habitable so near the new red giant. Humanity realized this was going to happen long before then and built a myriad of space arks to save them from extinction. The first arks hurried from the Earth with great and serious purpose in 2803 AD to escape the increasing heat and to escape the poisonous radiation from a terrible nuclear war.

As was also predicted by Nostradamus, they found new inviting worlds encircling a star within the constellation of Cancer to settle on. The pioneers named this star, Frey, after the Norse fertility god who had control of sunlight. It had eight planets within its system, two of which were habitable and spun around the sun in neighbouring orbits. The settlers named the planets and the days of the week according to Norse mythology. (See Appendix.)

Of the two habitable planets in the Frey Solar System, the one most similar to Earth was the planet third from the sun, so the settlers gave it the Norse mythological name for the earthly abode of humankind: Midgard. It even had salt-water oceans, although the salt content was not as high as Earth’s. The surface of Midgard was habitable, but beneath the surface, it was, in fact, hollow and had an inner sun.

Just beyond Midgard, fourth from the sun, was Freya. This planet was named after the Norse goddess of love and fertility, hoping this would be a beneficial name for a planet seemingly too cold to live upon. Being fourth from the sun, the surface was a barren, frozen wasteland. At the north and south poles, the temperature was cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide solid. Inside, however, was a hidden paradise kept beautifully warm by the hollow planet’s inner sun.

During the Great Settlement, humanity uprooted entire countries and cultures from Earth and transplanted them into their new worlds. (See Maps.) Aside from these geographical changes, other changes had occurred as well. The Canadians settled upon a continent on Midgard in the northern hemisphere and declared it Canada, but this country had changed more than just its planetary location. The provinces and territories were no more as each had become its own nation within the United Nations of Canada. The Canadians divided the new continent into nations with mostly the same names as the provinces and territories on Earth. They also added new nations to give the aboriginal Canadians their own governable land, but once these people settled on their new planet, they were no longer aboriginal, so they called themselves the People of the Tribes.

The Unified Countries of South America changed their name completely. They could not continue to call themselves South Americans when they were no longer south of anything anymore. They were, in fact, west of Canada now. They named their new continent and country, Verano, after the Spanish word for summer. When the first settlers’ had disembarked from their first ark after a 58-year-long journey through space, summer was the wondrous season their starved eyes had witnessed.

Most countries kept their names the same. The Americans were so damn proud of their country, so they continued to call it the United States of America. Thousands of years in the future, you can still hear them chant at their sports games, USA! USA! USA!

Both Midgard and Freya were beautiful places to live. People regarded them as paradises. No parasites existed there, nor any biting or stinging insects. The settlers loved it and so they were careful not to bring their own from Earth. They brought genetically altered stingless bees and did not bring any wasps or hornets. They also were careful not to bring fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, or fire ants, for example. On Earth, humanity strictly quarantined all plants and animals before they loaded them into the space arks, which transported people, flora, fauna, and raw materials to their new homes.

On Earth, it took about 5 years to prepare and load an ark. Workers sterilized soil and trucked it into the vast cargo holds in mass quantities where they could plant trees in small forests to survive their 58-year journey to their new home. Purified water in voluminous aquariums held all sorts of aquatic life. Workers poured sterilized soil into other areas of the arks and grew grass there to accommodate ruminants. Humankind created artificial environments in the arks for their long journey to help ease the burden on the food supplies. When the arks reached either Midgard or Freya, they took about 5 years to adapt and unload the plants and animals onto or into their new homes. Each ark made several trips to and from Earth.

Unfortunately, not everyone or everything could be saved. Countless humans perished by the heat, by disease, and by famine. Brutal storms also tore at the world like vehement monsters while people waited for the arks to save them. Cities lay in ruins. Civilization on Earth ceased to exist except at the places where the arks were to pick up their cargo, including as many people as could be found. Those who bravely remained behind on Earth to gather all the life they could, were finally picked up and taken to their new home when Earth’s wild weather system had become too dangerous to continue their rescue operation. Imagine trying to capture an antelope in a hurricane or a whale in a monsoon. Imagine how gigantic these arks actually were. They looked like rectangular, boxlike shipping containers, but they measured in kilometres! Noah never had to save blue whales and Noah never understood about the problems of inbreeding and the necessity to save more than two of everything.

The total number of space arks between all the countries was 37. It took these 37 arks, making 3-4 trips over the span of 441 years, to save the species of Earth. It also took unselfish cooperation. When the last ark finished unloading on Midgard in 3244 AD, the survivors deemed the rescue operation a remarkable success, despite the unfortunate losses. The combined efforts of all the countries saved most people and species.

In the end, however, the howling tortured Earth caught up the remaining luckless lives into its chaotic death throes of destruction and threw them all into oblivion.

THE SPACE STATION

While telescopes on Midgard were morbidly entranced with watching Sol beginning the final conflagration of the Earth around the year 3500 AD or 633 AS (After Settlement), the people living within hollow Freya were frustrated with the difficulty they were having communicating with their planetary neighbour and with the inability they had to view the outside universe. They created small satellites, which cluttered up the space outside their open poles and became a danger to outgoing and incoming space vessels.

The ingenious Americans envisioned a truly grand scheme! The benefits would be far greater than the small problems they would solve. They captured everyone’s imagination with their inspired plan to build a gigantic orbiting space station by joining all the space arks together. Every country from both planets readily agreed to this and donated their arks and efforts in a great gesture of brotherhood to the building of this mighty station. (At least, everyone except the anti-social Dananns.)

It took over a hundred years, from 3511 to 3641 AD (644 to 773 AS), to successfully connect the arks together with unbreakable bonds and to make airtight passageways between them. The Americans who had envisioned this fantastic project named it, Bifrost, which, like the Norse rainbow bridge, connected two worlds. They created Bifrost to uphold the grand and noble ideal of Brotherhood, by promising to use the space station to strengthen the link between the two planets, despite their distance. They positioned the space station in a geosynchronous orbit over Freya near the north polar opening to allow those inside the hollow planet to use it as a powerful relay station when communicating with Midgard and to use it as a major port of trade between the two worlds. Commerce encouraged continuing friendship.

All the space arks, once joined, faced the same direction. Their engines remained intact in case of an emergency and all the bottom decks faced Freya, so the gravity generators would all be pulling in the same direction. The space station looked like 37 pencils glued together to form a cross within a circle when viewed directly from the pointed bows or from the blunt sterns. This formed the astrological symbol for Earth: a dedication and a reminder of where they had come from, but those who looked upon it saw it more as an epitaph.

Bifrost boasted about its new telescopes, which were better than Midgard’s. The space station did not have to deal with atmospheric interference; so many people flocked to Bifrost to see the dying Earth through the famous telescopes no one could rival. By the year 3797 AD (928 AS), their once-dear home finally broke apart and nothing was left but debris encircling the swollen red star for a time before it, too, disappeared.

The Earth was truly gone.

GONE THE EARTH

I never thought that I would see

Our mother world now dying.

She gave us life, then set us free.

Her children all are sighing.

The sun burned black our precious home;

We saw Earth torn to pieces.

It forced us in the skies to roam

Until our questing ceases.

THE WARS BEGAN

It seemed like a bad omen of things to come, for it was not long after Earth’s final destruction that major troubles began. If only they could have died along with the Earth, the worlds would have been much better places. Humanity was smart enough to leave mosquitoes behind to burn up with the Earth, but what about hatred? This was something they were not able to quarantine. It followed them to the new worlds like a lingering disease. It destroyed some of the bright new cities so carefully built with inspired designs and new technology. If only humanity could have maintained the cooperation that enabled them to rescue almost all forms of life from the Earth. If only they had maintained the brotherhood that had gone into the building of Bifrost. If only …

When the wars began on Midgard and within Freya, the people of Bifrost were disgusted that humanity had fallen again after being so elevated in peace for a time. The space station opened its arms to the many people fleeing from Freya to escape oppression and war. To these peace-seeking people, Bifrost granted sanctuary.

It then came to pass that all those who lived in the space station came together as one and cut off all political ties to the countries each ark belonged to and claimed the arks for their own. They emancipated themselves and became their own nation in 1273 AS, 500 years after workers had finished joining the arks together. They developed their own army and defence system, but declared themselves steadfastly neutral and would not interfere in any wars.

They renamed themselves: Titan. That name conveyed not only the monstrous size of their space station, but also the size of most of their egos. They were above it all: the wars, the politics, the planet, and the rest of humanity.

Those who created the arks designed them to be self-sufficient for long space voyages. As a result, Titan proved to be able to sustain itself in perpetuity. The Titans had agriculture and animal husbandry within the arks. They had massive aquariums full of fish that swam in the precious water from Earth’s own lakes and oceans. Forests grew in the station, growing out from the precious soil that came from their lost Earth. The Titans were the guardians of Terran ecosystems that were too fragile to adapt to either planet. Koala bears, which have such exclusive diets, would have died without their care. Titan contained the last true remnants of Earth, unadapted and unsullied by either Midgard or Freya.

Titan made most of its money by being a port of trade for the two planets. Commerce was important both monetarily and as a means to uphold the original high ideal for which humanity had built the station: to be a bridge between the two worlds, to strengthen brotherhood, and to keep humanity together. This was why humanity formed The Council of the Interplanetary Community and stationed itself in Titan. They sought to find peaceful solutions to any wars that broke out, but never intervened militarily.

Looking down below, the Titans viewed the Freyan wars with disdain. They watched from afar as the Millennium War (1930 to 2029 AS) ravaged the once-peaceful Midgard, destroying its beautiful architecture and priceless works of art. They mourned the loss of not just the lives, but of the irreplaceable creations of an inspired human spirit, but when the war ended, they saw hope.

The surface countries of Midgard settled into stable kingdoms. The Midgardians called their political system, democra-monarchies. After all, what is a prime minister or a president but an elected king or queen? One monarch ruled all the countries from an island called, Jamesland. Having one monarch governing all the rest gave unity and stability to the planet after the devastating war and gave Midgard one voice for all its peoples when speaking to Freya or to Titan. This showed promise.

The Freyan countries, however, had more difficulties. After the Midgard’s Millennium War had ended, Freya continued destroying itself internally from so many disagreements: democracies fought against dictatorships, capitalism fought against communism, and religions fought against other religions. When Midgard found a solution to its war, Freya was ever changing and unstable.

Freya had many more wars than Midgard, but no nuclear weapons were ever involved. Every country within the Interplanetary Community, including Titan, had signed the Treaty for Clean Weapons and had sworn never to use such devices ever again after they had poisoned their former Earth during the last war: World War III. Never again!

The wars were the reason why every country on Midgard or in Freya was well armed, yet even without the wars as an excuse, everyone felt a creeping paranoia that they had to be on guard against something.

THE REAL STORY

For about two hundred years, there was peace in both planets until the Tyrian War broke out in Midgard between 2945 and 2951 AS. A communist dictator from Verano tried to spread the evil of communism over the world, but all the other Midgardian countries rose up as one and crushed it before it could take root. After that, there was peace again.

In Freya, on the third of Secondmonth, 2958 AS, yet another war broke out: the Blood War. This far exceeded the Tyrian War in duration and barbarity. A large fanatical faction within the United Muslim Alliance, called the Iblis Dam, attacked Pakistan and India again without warning, trying to conquer them. The Americans and Russians came to the aid of their friends, but the Iblis Dam hit them hard in return. Citizens of the Interplanetary Community were screaming for peace. Neutral Titan imposed sanctions on the UMA to try to force it to stop the fanatical faction within it and they banned the aggressors from the station in order to prevent the war from coming to them. The Americans called across the vast blackness of space to ask Midgard for help and Midgard came … in the name of brotherhood.

The war went on for many years and in this time, our story truly begins, but though it is necessary to describe politics and war, they are but a bland swath of background on a painting that shows a subject in much more vivid detail in the foreground.

The real story is the relationship between two exceptionally Talented brothers named Sean and Erren Archer …

PART ONE: LIFE IN TITAN

1 THE DARK SIDE OF TITAN

THE SCHOOL IN SPACE

A nine-year-old boy sat in his programming chair in school, learning about Old Earth History. A metal band encircled his head, touching the bare skin of his forehead in order to download information into his brain as if he were a living computer. With his eyes closed, he could see the images in his mind as the narrator described the Exodus from Earth. He could see how Sol expanded and destroyed the planet humanity had originally come from. After learning about the history of Titan, though, Sean was cynical.

‘Brotherhood?’ he scoffed within his own mind.

When the bell rang for school to end, Sean reached behind him to the upright pole attached to the back of his chair, loosened the metal band, and lifted it up off his head, making him look as if he were a child angel with a halo over his head. He got down from his chair, grabbed his schoolbag, and left his classroom in a hurry. This little angel was soon to get into trouble.

He ran down the halls with the hood of his shirt up and tried to get out of the school without another incident. His eyes darted around, looking for threats in children’s faces, as he weaved through the exiting crowd.

When he found the exit, he was only partly relieved to go through it. He was not safe yet as he sprinted across the fake grass of the schoolyard. Up above, there was no heaven, no stars, no clouds, and no sky. There were only artificial-sun lights shining down from a neutral grey ceiling ten stories above him.

Life aboard the massive space station was tough for Sean. His last year there was the worst! He tried to blend in and look the same as everyone else. He even adopted the native accent in order to sound like everyone else. Unfortunately, he stood out from the crowd like a red cape a matador flaunts in front of a charging bull and bullies could not resist attacking him.

Sean tried to get away from school without a problem, but before he could leave the school grounds, a trio of children his own age forced him to stop dead in his tracks. There were two boys and one girl this time.

You dirty, filthy, slimy, scum! insulted Aether without provocation.

Sean shot back, We ALL came from a planet! If I’m dirty, so are you!

We were born here! stated Aneel proudly. This station is clean! We are clean! You are not!

Manchu wielded his words like a knife as he said, You need to be sterilized! He threw the first punch.

Sean involuntarily got into another angry scuffle in the schoolyard. It was three against one, but he fought them bravely! Concerned teachers saw the battle through the windows and came to the rescue. They