Roland woke after hours of sleep to the call that land had been spotted. Strangely, it was still bright outside. That was disorienting, but he rushed up to the deck to get a view of the unknown land of this world.
He watched as the land the horizon grew steadily closer, and Roland's anticipation mounted. His sharp eyes counted as the men at the side regularly measured the boat's speed. They were moving faster now.
"Will we pull up to the land or anchor and row in?" Roland asked. He wasn't entirely sure about the procedures for making landfall in a strange world.
Come to think of it, as this had never happened before, no one else was either.
"The terrain does not look too rocky, but that can be deceptive. We will slow as we come near and make the decision at that time based on the terrain and depth of the water." Haf answered.
Jimmy muttered something beside them, drawing looks from both the other men. He rolled his eyes and spoke up.
"We should be slowing already, I think." Jimmy said. "We're going faster, despite the sails bein' the same and the wind not picking up. I may not have spent a lot of time at sea, but I recognize a current when I'm caught in one." He spat, and Roland looked at Haf curiously.
"I had noticed that, thank you Jimmy." Haf replied. "This world is curious, but a current does not typically go directly toward land at this close a distance without turning. It simply wouldn't make sense."
"Neither does movin' stars or days that ain't the same." Jimmy challenged him.
"I considered that as well. Do not think you are the only one who sees." The Commodore eyed the smaller man, who shrugged indifferently.
"I wouldn't care none, 'cept it's my neck on the line too if you mess things up." Jimmy responded.
"Are we going too fast?" Roland asked, glancing over to the side where the men were once again doing the speed-measuring exercise of throwing the weighted plank attached to a rope overboard.
"Mmmm, and I wager it'll get worse. My bones tell me things ain't quite right." The quarter-halfling squinted towards the land. "You notice there ain't any breakers visible yet?"
"Thank you for continually pointing out the obvious, Jimmy." Haf eyed him.
"It's not obvious to me." Roland said softly, wishing he knew more about the sea. "Breakers are the large waves near shore, correct?"
"As the water pushes inland, the sea floor becomes shallower. The water near the bottom slows because it has no more room to move forward, and the water at the surface continues moving, rolling over in a white-capped wave. Normally we would see them by this distance, and although waves can add some speed to push a ship towards the shore, in this kind of weather I would not expect this much velocity." Haf's voice was steady, but Roland could sense the tension underneath it.
"I don't see any waves," Roland looked over the side.
"Now you're payin' attention. Something just ain't right. I don't like it." Jimmy fidgeted with his ever-present pack.
"I've never encountered anything like this," Haf admitted.
"I have. Once. It wasn't pleasant, and it don't make sense." The little man piped up.
"When was that?" Roland was squinting at the land, particularly the shoreline. He had become accustomed to the movement of waves up and down the sand, but the line between the shore and the water was absolutely rigid.
And thick. And dark. What was that?
"On a river one time. Water got fast all sudden like. I had the good sense to row myself on over to the side and drag my boat out just before I went over a big ol' waterfall." Jimmy said gravely.
Everyone close enough to hear the man's crazed mutterings glanced over in alarm.
Roland was still looking at the shore. The dark between the water and the sand was growing larger. A gap?
"I have a bad feeling about this." He said needlessly.
"Finally. Yours takes way too long to kick in. We'd better turn and hightail it out of here." Jimmy urged.
"It doesn't make sense," Haf said. "How can a waterfall be between the ocean and the shore?"
"A great question we can ask when we're far away from it," Jimmy complained.
"Look there!!" Roland said suddenly, pointing down the shoreline. A ship, much like theirs, was wedged in the gap, its bow stuck into the sand and the stern still in the ocean.
"He must have rammed the shore at high speed to keep from tipping into the breach…" Haf thought aloud before giving the order. "ALL SHIPS MAKE ALL SAIL! RAM THE SHORE!"
The boats responded quickly, and the speed picked up even more. Roland took a deep breath, trying his best to remain calm. The thought of plunging into unknown depths that could swallow oceans without filling up was one he didn't want to dwell on.
"PREPARE TO UNCOUPLE THE SHIPS!" Haf ordered next. Roland felt a moment of panic. Without a rudder, would they be able to steer directly at the shore?
He pressed down the emotion, realizing that if they remained tied to the Moonless Sea, they would ram into the back of her instead of into the shore itself. That would be disastrous.
As their speed increased further, the crew separated the ships on the Commodore's order. The Moonless Sea maneuvered out of the way, shifting to give the main ship a straight line to the land.
The shore was close enough to begin to see details. The sandy part of the beach was about 15 meters, and then gave way to a thick jungle of tropical trees and vines with vibrant flowers. It was like a fever dream to gaze at it too long.
It was moving rapidly closer, and Roland shifted his gaze to the gap between the water and land. It was dark, but the foaming mist of aerosolized water droplets obscured how wide it actually was. Startlingly wide.
Enough to worry that it would swallow the ships whole.
"Send six midshipmen to the bows to jump for shore as soon as we impact, to catch the ropes and secure the vessels," Haf called to the boatswain, who ran to carry out the order quickly.
Roland didn't envy them that job. Surely they must be extraordinarily brave, or foolhardy, to undertake the task.
Breathing steadily, he kept his place beside Haf.
"PREPARE FOR LANDFALL!" Haf ordered, and the men scrambled to their positions. Time seemed to stretch in slow motion despite the breakneck speed the boat seemed to have achieved.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Haf shouted, and Roland could hear the cries echoed on the other ships.
The Commodore knelt and braced his shoulder against a mast. Roland frantically looked around him and then knelt behind a railing, with one shoulder against it to take the brunt of the force. He hoped that was a good position.
He thought to look at where Jimmy put himself, but just then he felt the ship give a mighty shudder as the bottom scraped against something hard. The momentum was slowed considerably, but the ship continued forward until it crashed against the sand, albeit more softly than Roland had anticipated from the initial speed built up.
He rose to his feet when Haf did, just in time to catch glimpses of men throwing ropes from the bow and scrambling off to climb or jump down to the land below.
The sound of rushing water told Roland how quickly the water was passing around the ship, and yet… he had expected to hear something of the waterfall's bottom, yet he could not.
The other two ships were being tied off, with frantic yelling accompanying the crews' work to secure their positions.
Roland moved to the side to look over into the chasm between the sea and land, curious and yet terrified at what he would see.
It was black, as black as the Darkness when first he looked at it, but he squinted to make his eyes adjust. It seemed like a crack in the world itself, stretching down endlessly beyond his view. He watched the water as it tipped off the edge, falling further and further downward.
Particles of sand displaced by the ship's sudden impact were also trickling off the edge. Something like a cliff face on the land side extended downward a dozen meters before ending abruptly.
Roland blinked at the strange sight, and followed it from side to side. It was as if the land were floating, supported by nothing he could see below. Looking again into the gap, underneath the land, he squinted into the darkness, hoping the sun overhead would illuminate even a small portion of what lay underneath the world.
He could make something out, far below, but the shouting around him was growing in intensity.
Looking up, he wondered what the problem might be, until he was still long enough to realize that the boat was slowly shifting.
The angle of the center ship, unguided by a rudder, had been not exactly perpendicular to the shore, and now the water pressure was pushing, tilting, and coaxing it sideways, into the gap.