Panthera Yrrem The Last Son of Atlantis

By M. Modak

Long ago, in a universe very close to this one... deep in the ancient jungles of South America comes a story seeking the heart of truth. Panthera Yrrem and the Last Son of Atlantis. While on the path through the jungle, Yrrem saves a young boy from the teeth and claws of a hungry panther. She is heralded by the queen and all her people as the Jungle Avatar, High Priestess, Panthera Yrrem, the Thunderhead. The Dream Talkers, the quasi-religious leaders of the land, prophesy that a mighty warrior is coming, in the form of a baby boy, and Panthera Yrrem is chosen to raise the child. When the baby arrives, a ruined temple and a red star gem appear. A mighty warrior, Deif, attaches the red star onto a hatchet, and he gives it to Yrrem. As she holds it, she learns that she can do amazing things. Until the baby can control its tremendous power, she must learn to use the red star gem to keep him from destroying the world by accident. Will Yrrem learn to use the red-star-gem to subdue Dormen and all her enemies while unraveling the mystery of Atlantis’s last hour? Or will the Red Dream Talkers steal the gem and use it to shape the future to their will?

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Modak
• Release date: Jul 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005205102

M. Modak

I was born in a house in a small town in Mississippi and raised near the Louisiana bayou. By the age of ten, I had explored more than my share of mud holes, endless swamps, forest and long church pews. At ten years old, my family moved away from the woods and into a city on the east coast of North America. At 20 years old I was an assistant instructor teaching Thai Kickboxing, jujitsu, entertained other martial arts, and through them, I've learned that you never stop learning. I practice mindfulness, prayer, I study world religions and cultures, the History of Science and its advances on Earth as well as in space, North American history, politics and the potential of human nature. When I'm not on adventures with my family, I’m writing or studying. I also enjoy reading, swimming, gardening, painting, playing video games, movies, browsing used bookstores and caves and I love the great outdoors. M.Modak

Book preview

Yrrem stood up and surveyed the great river before her. It was framed by the clear sky, mountains, and trees. The green and gray river seemed to change colors as it flowed into a vanishing point far away, merged into the blue sky above, and returned to the current’s sparkling mouth. It felt as if all eternity was present infinitely joining horizon to horizon.

The sight quickened Yrrem’s mind, triggering a lost memory. As a child, she dreamed of a people living in a shining city on the edge of the sea who made her steward of a priceless gift. Then the moment passed.

Her eyes glistened, and her dark skin glowed in the sunlight, but her tightly braided black hair barely moved as the wind blew. She glanced up at the cloudless expanse, as a large shadow quickly passed over the river, and then it was gone.

The dark water reminded her that she was here because some soulless men were casting old ideas that had been abandoned a long time ago. Those ideas were entangling those she loved, and many innocent children would drown in the fear they created. This world didn't make sense anymore to her.

She had listened to all the old stories told by the Green, Blue, and Red Namahs, the Dream Talkers, those who claim to see the will of the ancient spirits, but she knew better now.

Her jaw set as her resolve solidified. She would show them how the old ways only brought pain and burdens to her people.

She thought, But they will never be satisfied. Today is the last day I will blindly follow the footsteps of the Namahs.

She took a deep breath then moved closer to the river when she saw Deif standing only a few strides away. When he was near no one could ignore his presence. His tall form was lean and muscular, with hawk like eyes that missed nothing. His black hair, and stern countenance hid a soft smile. He had shown Yrrem that smile once, and she found herself smiling in return before she could look away. She had longed every day since to see that smile again, but this was not a day for smiles.

Over the last two years, she had noticed him several times. Once, he was inspecting the village guards and messengers that walked the forest throughout the empire, and other times he had appeared unexpectedly. His presence had grown more frequent over the last few months.

She stepped onto the rock before her and squatted, lowering her water skin into the flowing river and quickly glanced through strings of braided hair. Deif was talking to the river guards. The guards held their spears as they casually looked at the other ladies gathered at the riverbank, but Deif was looking at her.

Two years ago, he was appointed Grand Guardian, leader of all tribal sentries and messengers, and most of the girls Yrrem's age hoped he'd choose them for his first wife. She had been too busy studying the messenger's languages, the lore of the land, and other interests to notice all the eyes watching her.

Today was her 16th birthday, in one year, she'd present herself to the tribe as a woman ready to be a bride. This was her time to assume womanly responsibilities; Deif would have to wait. She briefly wondered if he'd still look at her, in that way again, after her work today.

Deif's feathered headdress shimmered as his head turned toward the forest behind her. Yrrem could hear chanting and footsteps coming from the path. She didn't need to turn around to know that the Blue Namahs men, painted in holy blue stripes, had come to oversee the women taking water from the river.

Water splashed as the women, hunched from years of bearing holy water, drew up their water burden. They struggled to keep their arms ceremoniously straight as they held the now heavy skins.

Yrrem listened as Mik, a girl who came of age only a few months ago, cried out as she stumbled backward. She spilled the holy water that she carried all over herself and on the ground.

Yrrem splashed water on her face and neck and then stood up with her water burden, just as the Blue Namahs stepped toward Mik. The report from the rod across Mik's hands came to her ear, followed by sharp rebukes for her clumsiness.

You must walk backward carefully, said the Blue Namahs.

The older women continued, as if nothing happened, walking backward with their water load in practiced cadence along the path leading back to the village.

Yrrem lifted the waterskin, spun around, and let it rest on her back.

The other women at the river stopped and stared at her. They all knew what she was going to do; everyone had heard her questions to the Blue Dream Talkers and her conclusions. Most women secretly agreed with her, but they couldn't believe she would do it.

Yrrem turned and looked at each woman in the eyes, but they looked away. They would not help her. She was on her own this time.

She turned toward the village and began the long walk back when the First Blue Namahs walked up to her and said, Hold the water in front of you and turn around!

Why, she asked?

Don't ask again, Yrrem. We have warned you before about your lesser mind. Acedag must be respected. You must face the water when you are in the Great Water-Body's Presence. Turn around, hold the water in front of you, and walk backward until the river is out of view.

Yrrem kept walking forward. She said, Watermaster, it is a long way before the road hides the river.

The First Blue Namahs gritted his teeth and spoke slowly, You must walk with your face toward the Great Water.

Yrrem continued walking, and she said, Many women fall that way and spill the sacred water. I'm sure Acedag, our Water Lord, would be angrier with the waste of water during a drought than the offense you charge me. Now leave me alone Blue Namahs or carry my skins to please your special ways.

The man in blue stepped back with his mouth open as Yrrem walked into the forest. No one had ever spoken to him this way. Especially not a woman of such low rank, but he dared not lay a hand on her.

He looked at the guards. They turned away, but Deif was watching him. Yrrem is the most beautiful girl in all the land, though she did not know it. Her heart is pure, and the elders understood Deif's interest in her. He is the only man they believed strong enough to tame one such as her.

The Blue Dream Talker said to Deif, If you do not teach her, we will.

Deif said nothing as he turned and stepped into a nearby canoe, pushed off from the land, and drifted into the current of the river.

2 Panthera, Teeth, and Claw

Yrrem awoke, swaying in the hammock. For the past few weeks, she stayed in a guest hut not far from the Red Temple. A kind family built the shelter for pilgrims that visited this side of the mountain, far away from the Blue Temple. It was a small two-chambered dwelling with a stone floor near the wash area, but compacted earth made up the rest of the floor. The walls and roof were bundles of sticks, straw, and mud that leaked water when it rained, but it had been dry for a long time.

Yrrem was grateful for this space because of the privacy and because it was near the jungle. Most nights, in each province of the empire, she stayed with a different family that lived near the village temple. Everyone slept on the floor or in hammocks.

She hated sleeping on the ground. When she slept down there, she always woke up with a bug in her hair or crawling where it shouldn't.

She felt heavy in her heart and tired from weeks of being lectured by another random stranger that had recently visited the temple of the Blue Dream Talkers. The story of her forward-facing walk home from the river had spread far. Everyone heard a different version of her blasphemy, and all the retellings were exaggerated.

The women lecturing her last night skipped the religious talk and went straight to incoherent ramblings. Their eyebrows furrowed, and faces turned red as they reminded her of her place in society and where she came from; nowhere and nothing.

She shook her head and yawned at the image of last night's unpleasant encounter. The gently swaying hammock that she lay in drew her awareness, and the early morning-air felt crisp. She got up, bathed, and cleaned up the hut leaving it better than it was when she arrived.

She stepped outside, and her eyes squinted in the bright sun, so she hurried for the protective shade of the path. The jungle was alive with sounds, as light streamed past leaves through the canopy like magical rain.

Her mind drifted back to what the angry women said to her, and what they didn't know about her, or why they didn't even ask her why she did what she did at the river a few weeks ago. She had hoped everyone would see the more profound meaning, to make burdens lighter, but a few days ago, the women at the market told her that she never had to bring water to the Blue Temple again, they didn't want her cursed labors.

Disappointment sunk in. The water burden was every woman's responsibility, and she didn't want anyone to say she was lazy. Everyone needed water, more and more these days.

So, yesterday evening, she went to the Red Dream Talkers and asked if she could help them in some way. The temple's lesser attendants told her to get karron wood, a unique scented wood that burned endlessly for Foundag the Spirit of Fire. She liked that she didn't have to carry the wood in any ceremonial way; just gather as much as she could hold and come back to the temple.

The Red Temple was the most mysterious of them all. They did things in secret that no one talked about, especially not too little girls, but she was grown now.

The jungle path wound endlessly before her with great and small trees reaching to the heavens swaying overhead to the call of the winds. The trail was a familiar friend that comforted her on long journeys. Most of her life was in the service of one temple or another. She had seen it all while on the pathways throughout the mountains.

She'd walked with countless pilgrims and truth seekers as they foraged the jungle for this or that temple's sacred ingredients. She also helped them bring gifts to the Temple Spirits as they visited other distant temples within the empire. That's how they had discovered her as a baby.

Members of the Green Temple found her near the river in an empty hut one evening when she was a baby. Many believed a big cat ate her mom and dad, or they fell into the river and was washed away, but no one knew them or what happened.

She wished she knew who her birth parents were. She often wished she had a foster mom or dad like many of the other orphans, someone present, a mom or dad who was always there for her. Then, maybe her life would not have been so different from everyone she knew. But everyone agreed, she was special. A child dedicated to the old spirits.

She huffed and thought, They've changed their minds about that one.

When she wasn't on the path, she was at the feet of the Namahs listening to their Dream Stories and witnessing the Holy Dance before they fell into the Divine Sleep.

The Green Namahs was the closest to a family she had ever known. When she was first able to walk the path, the elder, Adoy, told her to visit all the temples of each village throughout the kingdom and learn, obey the local Namahs, and return home.

As a child, the Green Namahs painted a green star on her forehead. It was a sign for her passage, so the other temples, elders, messengers, and pilgrims would give her food, drink, and shelter. Though she suspected it was there so everyone would know where to send her when she became too much to handle.

She was sent home to the Green Namahs a lot for asking too many questions or wandering where she shouldn't go. Still, it was the Blue and especially the Red Dream Talkers that sent her back to the Green Namahs. When she returned to her temple near the sea, they always listened to the stories of her adventures throughout the kingdom and the different practices she learned from the other Dream Talkers.

She had her secrets too. She had taken samples of the spirit water, a drink some called the dream potion. She took one from each colored temple, and without them knowing. She hid in the jungle at night to drink them so she would see what the Dream Talkers could see. Each time she did this, she came back changed, and she felt older inside her mind, thinking less about ordinary concerns, as the people around her thought, and she looked deeper into the meaning of her life.

She took no other substance that affected her mind in strange ways, and she never drank the firewater as the others drank because of what they did to themselves and others when they stumbled and lost their tempers.

Yrrem cleared her mind again, listened, and she began walking faster. The old imperial messenger's warning came to mind, The wild demands your attention.

There were many animals in the woods that could hurt or kill her, but she wasn't afraid, not even of the great cats. While growing up and walking the path from village to village, the guards and messengers became her best friends. They taught her survival skills. Everywhere she went, she carried a small but sturdy hatchet with a sharp stone tied to one end for clearing overgrown branches along the path. The other end of the hatchet was sharpened to a point and hardened in the fire to be used as a dagger if the need arises.

They gave her the tool, and she spent many years learning how to use it and hunt, track animals, and build a shelter with it. She could start fires and read the knots in the necklaces that the elders wore. She knew the status of every elder, and she saw what was happening all over the land long before anyone else.

Yrrem stopped walking, and she suddenly felt alone. The water, heat, earth, trees, and the ground were all around her and in the air, but she felt that there was something more significant that she was missing.

She stepped off the path and walked deep into the thicket, hacking at the overgrowth following the scent of the Karron tree; the wood the Red Namahs needed for the eternal fire. She looked for dead branches and found many for the ground was very dry.

When the rain fell these days, it fell lightly, and some people were beginning to worry. In the village markets, joy often became fear when debates over whether they should return to the old sacrificial rituals involving the young became impassioned. They argued if the old way would please the ancient spirits and bring back the rains, or if they should build more aqueducts or move closer to the rivers, as the Green Namahs did. The loudest voices quickly changed to whispers when the children came around.

Yrrem selected a low hanging branch and struck it with her ax. It snapped, and she hit it repeatedly until it fell to the ground next to many smaller limbs. She only cut down a few branches, and soon she had all she could carry.

After gathering all the limbs, plus the ones she cut, some as thick as her wrist, she returned to the trail and began the long walk back.

She was starting to get hungry. It wouldn't be long until they served the midday meal at the village market.

Then she heard leaves crackling. Someone was running through the jungle right towards her just over the next hill. The footsteps were light but quick.

She wondered for a moment if one of the younger messengers could be rushing news to the next village, but then she heard a cry.

The sound was unleashed panic coming from a child. Yrrem dropped all but the largest stick and ran towards the hill in front of her. She pulled her hatchet free from her waistband. At the same moment, a small boy, no older than seven years old, leaped over a fallen tree and jumped onto the path just in front of her.

Before she could ask him what's wrong, he looked back, pointed, and stammered, Ja-jaguar!

Yrrem stepped forward as the boy circled behind her, hiding behind her legs. Large yellow eyes surrounded by a big black cat sprang from the trees right towards her. She screamed as she leaned back and raised the stick in her left hand to block the cat's descending fangs. Its muscular right paw whipped around her upper arm, and it fell upon her with its full weight.

Yrrem and the small boy toppled over backward, and the cat was on top of her, its sharp teeth at her neck. Its hot breath exhaled in her face. But the cat didn't move, paralyzed in a snarl. Yrrem looked into those yellow eyes and saw its life go out.

The sound of men yelling, and heavy footsteps took Yrrem's eyes away from the cat's dead gaze.

Hands reached down and lifted the heavy body off her, and she heard a gasp. The cat was more massive than Yrrem and the boy put together.

It was Deif. Fear held him like a tree, as he looked down on the two survivors. Yrrem saw her hatchet, broken, hanging from the cat's chest.

Deif pushed the cat into the arms of a man that stopped beside him.

Not believing what he saw. The guard holding the cat said, Yrrem did this?

Deif ripped the cord from his necklace and tore off a strip of cloth draped around his calf. He knelt and tied them around Yrrem's upper left arm. When he drew back his hand, it was covered in her blood.

He said, Are you hurt anywhere else?

Yrrem gave a little smile, sat up, and began checking the boy, but he didn't have a scratch. He started crying and asking for his mother. Yrrem hugged him and said in a soft tone, We'll get you home. It's okay, you're okay.

She looked at Deif and asked, Do you know where he lives?

Then another man arrived and stopped next to the first guard and asked, Who did this?

The guard holding the cat said, Yrrem, just slew mighty Panthera and saved this boy's life.

Yrrem stood up as Deif said to the second guard, Take little Jaanauck to his mother. They live near the well.

The second man, wearing the signets of the imperial messengers, bent low and lifted the boy to his feet. He asked, What do I tell his mother?

Deif said, Tell her to pray to Yrrem's guardian spirits and thank them for making our people strong.

The messenger lifted his spear and slammed it into the ground and loudly proclaimed. We will spread this tale across the land. It will fill everyone's heart with joy. Yrrem has saved a child from the teeth of Panthera. And it's a magnificent black cat, a true sign from the spirits. He lowered his tone and looked at the first guard and then at Deif and continued, The guardian spirits saved this child, too bad she can't bring the rain and save the others.

Deif and the man holding the cat looked away, as sadness passed over their faces.

Then the guard turned with the boy, and they both started walking back to the village. The boy pulled his hand free of the guard, turned, and ran to Yrrem. She knelt and took him in her arms and let him cry.

Deif motioned for the guard to wait until the boy quieted. Then he gently picked him up and held him to his chest. The boy cried silently as the two disappeared over the hill.

Yrrem looked at the cat. Deif reached over and snapped the broken hatchet and pulled it free, leaving the dagger's end still lodged in its heart.

He turned the hatchet over, inspecting it, and said, this was made well by messengers from the lowlands." He pulled his ax from his waistband and presented it to Yrrem.

He said, Please take mine. The wood is stronger and the stone sharper. If you let me, I will take this cat and present her and this broken hatchet to our queen. She will want to see this for herself before the day is over.

Yrrem took the hatchet from Deif's hand. It looked a lot like hers, but the wood felt smooth, and skin wrapped the handle giving it a better grip. It was longer than hers had been, lighter but perfectly balanced. Gems circled the neck laid in gold at the base of the stone ax.

She said, I can't take this Master of the Guards.

Yrrem, He said, Please call me Deif and take this. I would not have peace knowing you walk the jungle without a new tool like the one you had. It already worries me when you are alone.

Yrrem's smile grew before she could stop herself, and she looked away, but then she quickly recovered and slipped the hatchet into her waistband at her hip.

She said, Do what you must with the great cat. She was a beautiful beast. Yrrem lowered her eyes and continued, I pray to the Great Spirit for her safe journey into the endless dream.

She looked into Deif's eyes, I am grateful for the new hatchet, though, it's so nice, I'd be too afraid to use it. She pulled it out from her waistband and said, Please take it back.

Deif took the hatchet from the belt on the guard still standing with the cat. The guard looked at Deif and then glanced at Yrrem and smiled. He hefted the cat over his shoulder and started the long walk to the capital home of the royal family.

Deif handed Yrrem the second hatchet and said, Then use this one for your daily task and mine for protecting the innocent and saving our children.

3 The Dance of Life

Yrrem felt a throbbing in her arm, and she shifted her focus to another part of her body that didn't hurt. The pain diminished and then disappeared. She felt another ache deep in her chest as she stood looking into Deif's eyes. She remembered to breathe, thinking, He is the first person ever truly to see me.

May I walk you back to the village so that Harwaget will heal your cuts, Deif asked as he put his empty hand out for her to take.

Yrrem took the second ax and tucked both axes behind her hips and gave him her hand.

He looked down at her hand and raised it to his lips as if he was about to kiss it. His pleasant face turned into an exaggerated frown, "You have the dirtiest hands I've