The coin is spun, is lightly tossed:The wide-spaced shrines of the goddess Cwingwadek communicated by a unique mode: enchanted coins that, tossed correctly, would supply an invariant sequence of roses and wasps, dolphins and pomegranates, for transcription into characters of the goddess’s tri-triplex script. Thus one coin could pass from shrine to shrine, informing each of some refinement in thealogy, some herbal innovation, and be returned to its incantrix for cleansing. And this nomismatography was a close-guarded secret of the goddess’s sect, which gained thereby much advantage over its rivals; but word thereof came one year to the ears of certain thieves in the kingdom of Hunes, who determined to waylay and rob a coin-carriess en route from shrine to shrine. For with such a coin, sequence memorized, could a man not toss his way to a fortune thrice in a week? Aye, he could, and win entirely unsuspected if he played aright.
Then stare the face — who’s won, who’s lost?
Wherefor the thieves waited their chance, bribing word of one shrine’s doings out of its sweepers, till the news came that a carriess was expected and a parchment prepared for her coin. Hereat three thieves rode to the parched and stony hills whereover the carriess would come, stationing themselves in the narrowest of its passes and trividing the night into watches. Third of these took the thief Narm-Tvi, enasute from a brawl but swearing he would smell the slut a league off and wake his companions for the ambush. Knowing, natheless, how the undermind delights to subvert the overmind’s intent, he chewed astringent berries of a somnifuge ere setting himself to watch his five hours, ears pricked for the clop of hoof on stone. Dawn found him twitching but alert... and ’twas now the carriess came, veiled and unsuspecting.
Narm-Tvi heard her horse afar and roused his companions, who ran to their posts to ready their bows, for they meant to strike her down in the saddle ere searching for the coin. But when they saw her slenderness and the grace wherewith she rode, their plan of muliericide swung to concupiscence, and they determined, whistling the change of plan one to another on bird-notes, to have the fresh-minted coin also of her arse, beside the virgin slot of her cunny and wet warmth of her mouth. ’Twas between the ribs of her horse, therefore, that they buried their shafts. The priestess sprang free of its fall and fled from them as they came roaring from hiding, ducking a lunge, dodging a kick, setting her small feet to a path of the hills whereon their larger, she no doubt recked, would stumble and slip. But Narm-Tvi was mountain-bred, sure-footed as an ibex, easy-lung’d as a lynx, and sprang gleefully to the pursuit, leaving his companions to search horse and saddle-bag for the coin. And aye, he laughed to see the eyes widen above the veil as, having topped an initial slope, the girl looked back and found him half-way thereup, clearly gaining.
With a headshake she turned and ran on, up through the tough scrub and cactus, beginning, in the extremity of her terror, to strip off her garments and fling them aside for extra speed or nimbleness. Each thereof he caught up as he bounded her-after, testing it as he went for a coin sewn here or there. But he was more eager now for girl than coin — her flesh glowed ahead, golden in the morn-light as a last garment fluttered aside. He caught it up, tested it, found it cloth merely, and ran on with increased vigor, suspecting now that she carried the coin in her belly. Well, then, they would rape her and rip her, should she prove not worth the keeping and swiving while the coin worked its way through. Pursued and pursuer were high on the hill now, nearing the vague stone pyramid of the summit, and a down-glance showed him the twin dots of his companions’ faces, upgazing to the pursuit from the road. When he turned back, he barely swung his head aside from a stone flung by the priestess, and swore with venom, hand flashing to his knife.
Mayhap he would rape and rip here, alone, telling his companions she had broken her neck on the far side of the hill. But she was turning at bay on the summit, body naked but face still veiled, flinging another stone that he palmed aside, then another, then he was on her, arms oping that he might grasp and throttle her flesh like a throat, ere he swived her beneath the climbing gold sun-coin, spun zenith-ward by a divine thumb. But his closing arms seized no girl: her scented flesh, tender in its solidity, sprang apart in a myriad golden coins, showering the summit of the hill and beginning to bounce downwards over the stony slopes with a ringing as of sardonic female laughter. He clutched with both hands for them, slipped, and was rolling down thereamongst, hearing the whole slope wake from slumber under his weight, while his companions ran, one to left, one to right, of the road the avalanche would obliterate.