SALLY'S QUEST: EPILOGUE


     Sally opened the door and saw not the Knothole encampment, but
a blackness deeper than midnight.  She stepped across the
threshhold into the darkness, only dimly aware that her ankle
suddenly felt better.  The door closed behind her and the light of
Mobius faded into silence.  Sally, now dressed in her customary
boots and vest, looked around her.  She knew she was back in the
Hall of Limbo.
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     With a start, Sally turned around.  The masks of the Ancient
Walkers hung above her head, circling like a ball.
     "Wait, a minute!  Was all that real or not?"
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     "Then it was...did you set all that up?"
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     It was apparent that the Ancient Walkers were waiting for an
answer and would be content with nothing else.  But WHAT answer? 
Now that it was over, Sally tried desperately to remember every
detail, wondering what the Ancient Walkers were driving at.
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     Sally remembered every detail, grateful that the memory of the
ordeal had not yet begun to fade.  But she still couldn't
understand all of what happened to her.  It was a group of
incidents with no organization, like a handful of beads that needed
a piece of string to become a necklace.
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     Sally was desperately trying to put everything together but it
was as if her mind was as dark as her surroundings.  Desperately
she tried to remember everything, and she began wringing her hands
in frustration as she watched the masks circling above her like
carrion birds above something that was dying.
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     Suddenly, Sally was aware of something on one of her fingers. 
It was her signet ring: a blue stone with the Cosmic Serpent etched
in gold upon its surface.  As she looked at the stone she
remembered her family's credo.  At once everything fell into place.
     "WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?"
     "I have learned," Sally called up to the masks floating in the
formless sky above her, "about ruling with honor."
     The Ancient Walkers were silent.
     "I have learned that there is no honor in failing to oppose
evil.  I have learned what happens when someone, when an entire
people, chooses not to oppose tyranny but simply gives up.  As...as
I had planned on giving up."  Sally bowed her head and wept
quietly.
     "SHE HAS LEARNED MUCH," a voice said after an eternal silence.
     "THERE IS STILL MUCH TO BE LEARNED."
     "MORE TESTS TO CONFRONT."
     "AND OF THE TESTS THERE IS NO END."
     Sally waited as the Ancient Walkers fell silent again, wiping
her eyes on the back of her hand.
     "IS IT ENOUGH?"
     "IT IS ENOUGH."
     "FOR NOW, IT IS ENOUGH."
     With that, the mysterious doorway she had seen before appeared
in front of her and the doors swung silently open.  Inside the
doorway, as before, the Crown of the Acorn Kings rested on a
pedastal.  She walked toward it, sensing that there was no danger
of the door closing in her face this time.
     "TAKE IT," one of the Ancient Walkers urged as she crossed the
threshhold.
     "TAKE WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS."
     "USE THE POWER IT POSSESSES."
     Sally reached out to take the crown when suddenly she stopped. 
Some small voice of doubt cut through the euphoria she was
beginning to allow herself to feel.   What had the Walkers just
said?  That the crown was rightfully hers?  She looked again at the
signet ring and remembered something else the Walkers had said:
that the tests never end.  She pulled her hands away from the
Crown.
     "No," she said quietly.
     "TAKE THE CROWN."
     "No!"
     "WHY REFUSE WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS?"
     "Because it ISN'T rightfully mine!" she shouted at the empty-
eyed masks.  "This belongs to my Father, the true King of Mobius. 
As long as he is still alive and I am still underage, this Crown is
not meant for me."
     "ARE YOU SO SURE?"
     "ARE YOU SO CERTAIN?"
     "ARE YOU NOT POSSIBLY THE INSTRUMENT OF YOUR FATHER'S
DELIVERANCE?"
     "If I AM such an instrument, tell me so!  If I were to assume
power that isn't mine by right, I'd be a usurper.  I'd be no better
than Robotnik!"
     "TAKE THE CROWN!  TAKE THE CROWN!"
     "I won't!" Sally screamed.  "I'll destroy the Crown before I
take it and rule without honor!"
     "SACRILEGE!" the Ancient Walkers cried out in voices that
sounded like thunder.  "YOU WOULD COMMIT SUCH SACRILEGE?"
     "If that's the only alternative to being a usurper...then so
let it be."  And in one swift motion she snatched the crown from
its resting place, raised it above her head and hurled it at her
feet...
     ...where it promptly disappeared.  Now Sally was no longer
surrounded by the impenetrable blackness of the Hall of Limbo. 
Above her was the starry Mobian sky, and beneath her was the
indistinct Mobian landscape.  And she was falling.
     "Hang on, Sally!"
     It was Dulcy's voice.  But where was it coming from?  Sally
had less than a second to wonder before she felt herself land on
something, something that seemed to hang in mid-air.  She was
momentarily disoriented until she realized that her fall had been
broken by Dulcy herself.  Her eyes were now accustomed to the low
light of midnight and she saw that she had landed on Dulcy's back
near the saddle that was still attached to the dragon.  Sally
grabbed for the saddle horn as Dulcy banked and climbed upward in
flight, skidding to a stop on the Floating Island.  Knuckles and
Archimedes rushed to her.
     "Are you all right?" Knuckles asked.
     "Never mind me, what about Dulcy?"
     "Can't I sleep in a few more minutes, Ma?" Dulcy asked
dreamily.
     "She's all right," Sally said.
     "Could've fooled me," Archimedes muttered under his breath. 
"Dragons!"
     "Are you sure you're all right?" Knuckles asked as he helped
Sally to her feet.  "What were you thinking?"
     "I wasn't.  At least not very clearly."
     By this time, the fog in Dulcy's head had lifted and she got
to her feet.  "Dulcy," Sally asked, "where did you come from?"
     "Well, when you told me to go away I got kinda worried.  So I
flew off until I figured you couldn't see me.  Then I circled back
and hid in the cave."
     "Hold it!" Knuckles interrupted.  "WHAT cave?"
     "There's this huge cave just below here, on the underside of
the island."
     "That's ridiculous, there aren't any...wait a minute!"
     "What is it?" Sally asked.
     "That time Robotnik was here and convinced me he was helping
me guard the Chaos Emerald from Sonic.  He took the liberty of
setting up weapons emplacements underneath the island.  I thought
I'd dismantled all the weapons systems and filled in the holes."
     "Looks like you missed one, lad," Archimedes observed.
     "Well, whether I did or not I'm going to fill it in right
now!"  With that, Knuckles began walking toward the edge of the
island."
     "Can't it wait until daylight?" Archimedes called to him.
     "No, it can't.  If that cave was big enough to hold a dragon
who knows what ELSE may be down there?  Sally, are you sure you'll
be OK?"
     "I'm fine.  Thank you for asking," she said sincerely.
     Knuckles smiled, then stepped to the edge of the island and
dove off as if he were diving toward a pool of water.  In the
starlight the others saw him glide in a graceful arc as he flew
toward the underside of the Island.
     "Kids!  They INSIST on doing things the hard way!" Archimedes
muttered.  With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.  Sally
turned toward Dulcy.
     "Dulcy, I distinctly remember giving you an order."
     "I know, Sally, but...well, you sounded like you...I mean I
was afraid that you'd...."
     "...that I'd do something incredibly stupid?"
     Dulcy nodded.
     "You were right.  And I'm glad you disobeyed me."  And though
she would have had as much success trying to put her arms around a
thousand-year-old tree, Sally walked up to Dulcy and put her arms
around the dragon's abdomen.
     "OW!" Dulcy screamed.
     "What's wrong?" Sally asked.
     "I dunno.  Something in my pouch stuck me.  But there's
nothing in...."
     Dulcy fell silent as she reached into her abdominal pouch and
felt something.  She drew it out and opened her claw.
     It was the Crown.
     "Where did THAT come from?" Dulcy asked.
     "I'll tell you later," Sally said as she peeled off her vest
and wrapped it around the Crown.  "That should cushion it.  You can
put it back in your pouch.  We've got to get back to Knothole at
once."
     "But why don't you hold on to it?  Looks like it belongs to
you, anyway."
     "Believe me, Dulcy, I'd feel better if you kept it in your
pouch until we got back."
     "Sally," Dulcy said as she looked back toward the princess who
was getting in the saddle, "are you sure you're all right?"
     This time, Sally did not hesitate to look Dulcy in the eye. 
"I am now.  Let's get home."


                             THE END