Ghost Coup! (2020 NaNoWriMo Practice)

 [Ahead of an inevitably bumbling NaNoWriMo attempt, I'm writing a bunch of short stories to improve my fiction-writing efficiency. They're quickly written and largely unedited, so please leave vicious critique in the comments. This was written on October 11th, 2020.] 

 

                A hushed whisper. A freshly burned note. A courtier shuffling down the hall a little faster than normal. These were the things Alize noticed. These were the warning signs. Something was afoot, not that anyone ever told her anything.

              Any one of the three things individually wouldn’t have been notable. People whispered all the time, and it wasn’t unusual for lovers to burn a particularly salacious letter – Father Abrach was known to have his men inspect papers throughout the palace. It was all three in combination that meant something. Especially the rushing. Courtiers rarely did anything with urgency. She couldn’t be completely sure – it would take seeing a worried over-the-shoulder glance to cinch it – but there might be a coup on.

              She loved a good coup. There hadn’t been one for, what, at least seven years now?

              Not that any of the recent ones were as good as the coup Alize had died in.

              It wasn’t much fun being a ghost, but at least of all the places to have your soul eternally bound to, The Grand Palace of the Hashkin Empire was an entertaining one. Three hundred years ago she had died in The First Great Coup of The Leskopold Dynasty. Stabbed through the chest with a decorative spear by a disgruntled handmaiden mere moments before she herself had been planning to kill her treacherous and horrid husband with a letter opener. The rage she felt in her final moments at being thwarted in her vengeance by someone else’s vengeance had locked her soul to this mortal coil, dooming it to wander until she could supernaturally instigate her husband’s death.

              Unfortunately, he was killed twenty seconds later by the very same disgruntled handmaiden, who he had apparently assaulted in various ways on numerous occasions.

              The sight brought much satisfaction to her newly birthed spirit.

              But not enough.

              Because her husband had not died at her own spectral hand, vengeance was not complete. Her spirit’s desire was not fulfilled. She was stuck.

              But thankfully so were plenty of other people, so there was lots of company.

              Looks like there’s going to be a coup, she said to the ghost of Antony Visiarch – a military advisor who had died sixty years after her.

              Yes, he replied, I saw the cooks earlier, digging the poison box off the top shelf in the pantry. Even the servants are picking up on it.

              You old fool, Alize reprimanded, the servants are always the first to pick up on it. You never did have any faith in the help.

              I was poisoned, the old man’s ghost replied haughtily, because my food taster thought that sharp stomach pains weren’t worth mentioning. I watched him die as I swigged down the very wine that had killed him. You can forgive me some skepticism.

              It was at this point that Alize was greatly relieved by the sight of the ghost of Marka Hatem, one of her close friends as a child who had died twenty years after her in The Third Great Coup of The Leskopold Dynasty (The Second Great Coup of the Leskopold Dynasty was very anticlimactic and didn’t produce many ghosts). The two wispy women rushed over to each other and embraced.

              Have you seen anything? Alize asked.

              I was following the Empress around all day hoping to catch her with that handsome young stable boy she so enjoys, so I almost missed everything. But just now I saw the stable master slipping opium to the horses!

              Ah, Antony interjected, I came up with that tactic for the Fourth Great Coup of the-

              Yes, yes, Alize was having none of it. You’ve told us a thousand times. The horses sleep through the night and can’t be used for escape. Your proudest accomplishment. Secured the coup. Too bad it didn’t save your sorry life; we wouldn’t have to put up with you reminding us of it every time someone so much as kills a baron’s heir!

              Yes. Well. Antony was ruffled. I’m going to go post up in Father Abrach’s chambers. I’m sure it’s something to do with him, his latest sermons have inquisition written all over them.

              Alize felt a pang of jealousy at that. She had never been taught to read, and in the last hundred years pronunciation of the native Hashkin tongue had shifted so much she could barely understand it. Nobody was willing to teach her, either. The closest she’d gotten was a very progressive young scribe who had been killed – funnily enough – for teaching the then-empress to read, in-between bouts of lovemaking. Unfortunately, it seemed his spirit was just waiting around for her to die. Something about “not wanting to spend a moment with our souls apart,” or some other lovesick, nauseating nonsense.

He was whisked to The Beyond before she could even get the letters down.

              With Antony gone, Alize and Marka were free to discuss their own theories.

              It has to be that young Count Leopolsk, Marka stated firmly, I’ll bet my spot in The Beyond on it.

              Leopolsk? Alize was incredulous. He might be ambitious but he’s far too doting of Princess Kashka to risk her life in a coup.

              Damn, you’re right. If that husband of hers goes down, he’s definitely taking her with him. Leopolsk knows that for sure.

              Alize had a sudden idea. I wonder if it’s that new Doctor Androsky. He nearly had a fit after the last ball, and the other advisors do seem rather taken with him.

              He did kill that servant girl he was sleeping with last month, Marka reminded her. He has a penchant for violence.

              Let’s go and see what he’s up to.

              They whisked their way quite literally through the palace to the chambers of Doctor Androsky, the newly appointed court physician with quite a lot to say about political goings on. It was just coming on sunset, and, sure enough, there was a hushed gathering of six men in his chambers. All wearing hoods indoors, as if that would do anything. A coup for sure. Marka ran to retrieve more of the ghosts, including a few recent deaths that could translate for them. As we all know, ghost-telepathy circumvents any language barrier.

              They just caught the end of the conversation.

              “So we’re all agreed then,” said Doctor Androsky. “The Emperor dies tonight.”

              “I wish we could wait until the ball next week and pass it off as wine poisoning,” said Kersk, the palace’s assistant Military advisor.

              A wise ploy, just what I would have done, muttered Antony, nursing his ego after being proven wrong about Father Abrach, who was fast asleep after getting into the communion wine again.

              “Yes, well,” the Doctor continued, “our hand has rather been forced by the arrival of the Vizier. If he takes back word of our Emperor’s plans for their princess, we’ll be at war with the Kursks by fall. If we time tonight right, we can win him over to our side and make allies of our friends to the south.”

              “It must be tonight, then,” said the court treasurer, who was such a blithering yes-man Alize had never bothered to learn his name.

              The figures in the room all nodded. A moment of shaking hands and patting backs later, they whisked off to their separate corners of the palace to begin the plot.

              Alize and Marka followed the doctor. He was a strapping man in his early thrities, and he proved to be no disappointment for the remainder of the evening. Apparently, he had spent several weeks bedding one of the emperor’s most trusted guards – how Marka missed that one Alize had no idea – and had stolen the bedroom key off the poor young fool. He slipped into the private chambers of the royal palace and went on a spree that Alize was almost certain violated some oath of his profession or another.

              It was marvelous.

              She was quite taken with how he slit the throat of the empress. She had been just about to scream out of the window for help when he reached around her from behind, pulled her backward, and plunged the knife into her throat. Breathtaking, in plenty of ways.

              The two death-long friends were oohing and ahing over Doctor Androsky’s one-man rampage through the royal nursery when Antony burst through the wall behind them.

              Alize! Come quickly! We need your help!

              His voice made it sound like the situation was life-and-death, which is an unusual thing to hear from a ghost. The three of them flitted through the walls to the east wing of the palace.

              It’s Princess Kashka, he told them as they flew. That awful husband of hers just shot her.

              Ah. Guns. A rather new invention that Alize was still getting used to.

              Her soul has just popped out, the old man continued, and I think you’re going to want to be there to help her transition.

              But why- Alize was interrupted by an ethereal scream.

              I WAS MOMENTS AWAY! MOMENTS! IF THE FUCKING COWARD HADN’T SHOT ME IT’D BE HIM STUCK IN THIS HELLSCAPE, NOT ME!

              Alize suddenly felt incredibly nostalgic.

              THREE MONTHS I’VE BEEN PLANNING THIS! THREE MONTHS! AND THOSE BASTARDS HAVE TO PULL A BLOODY COUP TONIGHT OF ALL NIGHTS AND RUIN EVERYTHING!

              Alize landed next to the freshly deceased woman and placed a soothing, ectoplasmic hand on her shoulder.

              Thwarted vengeance against an awful husband?

She smiled with poltergeistly intent.

Welcome to the club.

 

 

              A ghost has almost no power over the mortal realm – almost, not none. A slight breeze here, a rattled window there. Tiny little nudges that, if carefully planned, can cause grand effects. Alize had spent the last three hundred years daydreaming about how she could have gotten her husband killed, and as she explained the various vicious possibilities to Princess Kashka, it visibly calmed the traumatized woman and replaced her fear with delightful malice.

              They spent the next few weeks observing the post-coup palace, and plotting. The princess’ husband, Count Duok, had survived. In the wake of the violence he had attained a promising position as the new regime’s treasurer, after the old yes-man was shot in the face by a baron he had just been violently agreeing with about tax reform. This was how they planned to get him killed.

              The heist was incredibly intricate. Marka spent hours nudging a painting on the wall of the royal office slightly askew, such that when the new empress snuck a particularly skilled scribe into the royal chambers one salacious evening while the new emperor was away (Doctor Androsky was smart enough not to install himself beneath the sword of Damocles), the squire would be intrigued enough to push it aside and discover the cabinet behind it that held a copy of the keys to the royal treasury.

              Meanwhile, Antony mustered all of his ghostly strength every day to send a powerful chill down the spine of Count Duok’s closest assistant while he was shuttling receipts, causing him to drop several. Alize and Princess Kashka, for their part, blew with all their might to send at least a few of them out of an open window.

              Two weeks and several pages of missing accounts later, the scribe succumbed to temptation. A sizeable pile of gold vanished from the treasury. Scribes running off was hardly unusual, so no notice was taken of his immediate disappearance. It was six weeks before the next audit, and by that point he was all but forgotten.

              But Count Duok was not forgotten. When the missing gold was noticed, the receipt books were brought out – and it was brought to the emperor’s attention that the numbers didn’t add up. This was all the evidence that was needed. Doctor Androsky didn’t like Count Duok much to begin with, and his execution was scheduled within the week. The ghosts were delighted.

On the day of the hanging they all gathered in a big circle around the gallows. All the ghosts in the palace were there, and Princess Kashka hovered in the center, next to her husband, whispering terrible thoughts into his mind just as Alize had been training her to do. Alize, for her part, was delighted.

She was also hopeful.

All throughout the plotting of Count Duok’s death she had felt an immense sensation of satisfaction of a type she had never experienced. Could this be it? Was this the act that finally earned her a place in The Beyond? Princess Kashka would be going up for sure, but perhaps – just perhaps – Alize would also finally be rid of the mortal coil. She’d miss her friends, of course, but they’d all join her eventually when Judgement Day rolled around.

The energy in the air was palpable as the executioner read of the Count’s final rites and reached for the lever. As body writhed and his soul left his body, it briefly made eye contact with Princess Kashka.

You bitch, his spirit gasped. You had something to do with this, didn’t yo-

And then he was gone.

Princess Kashka started to glow. She turned, awe on her face as she gazed at her luminant hands, and then into Alize’s eyes.

I don’t know how I can ever thank you for this, she said, with spectral tears. I’ve wanted to watch the life leave his eyes since the day we were betrothed.

Think nothing of it, Alize said, with the air of a grand master consoling a student. I’m just so glad I was able to bring you what I could not bring myself.

The young princess began to dissolve upwards, towards the ever-present Light.

I think I’m going now.

You’ll be missed.

Can’t you come with me? Surely this is enough.

The princess grasped Alize’s hands, and she felt the warmth of eternal peace flow in to her as the light spread down her own arms. Yes! At last! She felt her entire essence relax in a single moment as she was lifted into the sky, higher and higher, until-

The princess was gone.

Alize was not.

Close, but no cigar. She’d have to try again. Marka and Antony drifted up to console her.

It’s not a complete loss, consoled Antony.

You’ll get to watch all the follow-on executions now.

Comments

  1. I. Loved. This. The title was enough to get the cogs in my brain rolling, and the premise is just perfect. It reminds me of playing "Among Us" after you get killed and wishing ill on all the people who didn't believe you. The characterization and motivation of Alize had me in stitches, and making her illiterate was a brilliant way of humanizing someone who is no longer human. All that being said, I feel, as I often do about your work, that the idea might be served well with just a little more length. I wasn't quite sure of the exact time period and place (or even if the reality was supposed to be of earth), and the plot was just begging to have its POV swapped to the living for a bit. The humor of the ghosts' actions from a mortal's viewpoint could have shown through a little better (think terrified humans vs invisible laughing ghosts), but at the end of the day they're playing God on a real-life Clue board, and I feel like that's a universal fantasy

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