In the Oklahoma panhandle may be found five small caves carved out of the sandstone by erosion. Their presence has been largely ignored by the formal archeological establishment, with most investigations performed by amateurs beginning in the 1970's. What makes the caves unique is the presence on their walls of petroglyphs or stone relief inscriptions dated to be about 2,000 years old, with an uncertainty index of 300 years. Even more remarkable is the fact that the petroglyphs include images and references which may be traced to Egyptian and Celtic cultures, groups whose influences were never thought to have extended to deep within the North American continent. Etched into the stone are figures of a sun god, and even a jackal deity.

Sadly, the walls and the images they contain have been defaced by graffiti and improper methods of copying the etchings. While their believers have greatly dwindled in numbers, to the true believer the ancient gods still exist, perhaps dormant and simply seeking the return of the old ways. It is most unwise to show the Old Ones disrespect, or one may yet suffer the consequences of such folly.

And so it was that when a modern defiler of the caves came to chip out an inscription carved within them during the twilight hours one evening, he was filled with an uneasy sensation that he was not alone. [i]My mind playing tricks,[/i]thought the young man as he intensified his efforts with hammer and chisel to remove an inscribed wedge of stone from the sandstone walls. From the shadows deep within the cave in which his spirit dwelled emerged a dark figure, shadowy and insubstantial at first but gradually assuming form and substance. So intent upon his work of disfiguration was the defiler of the sacred place that he did not notice the silent approach of a figure both human and animal, the body of a man fused to the black head of a jackal. At the last second the robber of the holy wheeled about, his gaze coming to rest upon a pair of alert, upright ears topping a canid head that held piercing eyes which penetrated his very soul, knowing and judging him completely in that instant. The cave robber opened his mouth to scream but his effort was cut short by the arm of the hybrid effortlessly piercing his chest and extracting the heart...

...the heart would be weighed, and no doubt found wanting by the Great God Anubis, Lord of the Underworld and Guardian of the Scales. The dark figure raised his jackal head and howled in triumph, a god of death who would never be cheated...