I’m very happy to welcome Mr. R. R. Brooks to my blog today. Aside from having a love of the sea, and participating in a vibrant writer’s group based out of North Carolina, he has a new fantasy novel coming out. He’s kindly agreed to give us the rundown on Justi the Gifted, a tale of epic fantasy.

Justi the Gifted, an epic fantasy tale by R.R. Brooks ( www.appalachianroundtable.com ) will be published momentarily by LeoPublishing L.L.C. (www.leopublishing.net) and can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstore (they’d love for you to visit).

A gift from a god can be good.  But what if it is damaged?

Even in a story set in a time long ago, an author may need a modern device.  When Justi and a companion Gralil travel alone to a western town in pursuit of the kidnapped Princess Mercerio, I had to get them back quickly to rejoin the army.  By horse, the trip would take a week.  That wouldn’t work.

My solution was a balloon.  Justi and Gralil consult with Roomul, a wise man-tinkerer who happens to have an invention and a theory.  This would work if I could fit the device to the times.  We get this description:

Roomul had Justi and Gralil fetch a long pole on which a shiny green fabric was rolled.  The old man lifted a basket as wide as two wheelbarrows and put it over his head.  He eyed the way through openings in the coarse weave and led them to a small vent steadily hissing a blue smoky gas.

He dropped the basket and said, “Don’t breathe any of that.  He went back to the shed and reappeared with a large coil of rope and a long floppy tube.

Thus the modern device of a hot-air balloon is modified to a shiny green fabric, a basket, and a blue smoky gas from Mother Earth.  They fill the house-sized balloon with lighter-than-air gas and climb into the basket.  Then they hear Roomul’s theory:

The nighttime breezes from the sea flow with great vigor in the direction of Zellingon.  By the dawn, you will have crossed the cleft and the Wark heights and see the Swamp of Snakes.  At that time, you must pull this center rope to dump gas until you descend gently to the ground.

Justi does question whether Roomul has tested this contraption.  The seer asserts, “Well, of course I have.  Right here, in fact.  No problem.”  To which Gralil responds, “You mean you got in the basket with it tied to a tree.”

The other accommodation I made to reality was to provide the passengers with blankets to deal with the cold temperature above.  A blanket came in handy when the pair had to use it as a sail to avoid collision with a rock.  After a scary overnight trip, my hero is back with the army to join in the siege of the royal city.