In the days and weeks that followed, I became intimately familiar with the workings of the compass I wore. When I was hungry, it led me to food; when I was thirsty, we found water along our path; and when I was tired, it guided us to some good shelter or safe resting place. Many kind and helpful people seemed to populate our path, and I marveled at our luck and the progress of our journey. Day followed day, though, and what seemed at first good fortune began to feel like meandering that hindered our progress toward our objective: my sister. I began to complain as we traveled, but if Riodhr was irritated by my whining, he kept it to himself.

Then, one afternoon, we literally traced a circular path back around a village we had just passed through the day before.

“Oh, for Frigg’s sake!” I exploded as I recognized the crossroads we had been at not 24 hours before. “Riodhr, where are we going? How will we ever find my sister if all we’re doing is going around in circles.”

“We won’t,” he replied, without the least sign of impatience…or concern.

“But we set out to find my sister,” I exclaimed, “So how can we be retracing our steps - ground we’ve already covered - I traveling toward her?”

“Ah, well that is a good questions,” Riodhr said, “Now you’re getting somewhere.”

I didn’t appreciate the pun. “Riodhr, I think I need to walk,” I said, “to clear my head.”

He paused so I could dismount, and we walked some way in silence side by side. I held my heart’s compass before me and watched the glow of the stones as a guide to where we should go, wondering what I could have missed in following them thus far. I was absorbed by the contemplation, and startled when Riodhr broke the silence.

“Astrid, do you remember what that compass is?” he asked me.

“It is my heart compass,” I answered, “It guides me to whatever it is I seek.”

“Exactly,” he said, with an emphasis that left the single word there hanging in the air before me, like a ripe apple asking to be plucked.

The compass would guide me exactly to that which I sought, so…

“If I let my mind wander, then the compass follows the course of my thoughts,” I exclaimed. “When I become absorbed by my frustration with the meandering path…”

“…then the compass has no choice but to take you back over that very same path.” Riodhr finished for me.

Wow.

“So…I must discipline myself!” I concluded, “I must always be thinking of my sister so the Heart’s Compass will lead me there.”

“Exactly.”

This time I admitted a small laugh, but only a small one, as another troubling thought came to me:

“That seems much more easily said than done,” I observed, “How do I keep my mind from wandering?”

“That is where I can help you greatly,” Riodhr replied. “You know the Unicorn’s horn has healing powers, of course, but did you know it is also connected to the Universal Eye?”

“I’ve never even heard of the Universal Eye. What is it?”

“Within each of us is a singular Eye of Love. When we activate this type of sight, we are able to connect to the vision of any other creature throughout space and time,” he explained.

“It’s easier, of course, to connect to others whose Universal Eye is also clear and open, because they are consciously sharing their vision with all beings; but even those who still sleep, or who see through a wounded or clouded eye are available to us, and we can sometimes even become an instrument of healing for their sight.”

“So how can this Eye of Love help me?” I asked. “What has it to do with keeping focus?”

“Because once you see your objective with the Eye of Love, the vision will be so beautiful and so compelling, that nothing will easily distract you from your objective again.”

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*********

I did as Riodhr instructed, and placing my hand at the root of the horn growing from his forehead, I was instantly swept away into a strange and wondrous vision. Before me stretched a vast and sandy beach, but with no ocean far away on the horizon I saw a thin ribbon of green. Approaching the green band, I soon discerned that it was a fertile river valley. Time passed rapidly, and day turned to night with a startling suddenness. A full moon was visible high in the sky, and from it a curious bright moonbeam seemed to catch the linen-draped curves of a giantess who wore the moon itself as her headdress.

“That is the goddess Hathor” Riodhr told me, “And the building on which she stands is her temple.”

I looked downward and saw she stood upon a blocky building with a flat roof; its facade was a half-wall surmounted by stout pillars set into its face, and directly in the middle, a large doorway; light glowed between the pillars and spilled out of the doorway as if to light my path toward the entrance. As I started forward, Riodhr spoke one more time, halting me mid-step.

“Look at your compass now,” he said; and so I did, and I saw that at the center of the compass, the Moonstone now shone brightly, as if in sympathy with my vision.

“Whenever your moonstone fails to glow,” Riodhr explained, “It is because your vision is not clear. So look one more time, and look well: fix this vision clearly in your heart and mind.”

Once again I did as he bade me, and I saw in the doorway the figure of a woman whom I knew could only be the woman I sought. I moved forward without thinking, calling her name: “Brenna!” but the vision faded as soon as I moved away from Riodhr, and I was again in our night camp, but this time with a clear vision for my path.

Find the temple of Hathor, and I would find my sister again.

From that today on, I cultivated a practice of clarifying my vision and strengthening my focus. I found a blank book and in it I began to record anything that could help me: over and over I drew the temple, the goddess and the doorway with it’s beloved silhouette. Sometimes words would come to me as I drew, and these I recorded as well. Often, these turned out to be the names of towns and helpers along our path. I did this especially when I found myself weary or discouraged by the length of the journey, and noticed the moonstone’s light beginning to fade; over time, the light became steady and bright, and though our way was long, I never feared we were lost along the way. By the time we reached the oceanless sands of Egypt and I saw the familiar green line upon the horizon they were so familiar to me that my arrival felt almost like coming home.

*********

I did not need Riodhr to tell me that this next phase of my journey must be undertaken on foot and alone. I dismounted when we reached the perimeter of the temple grounds, and I approached the dark doorway beneath the light of a waxing moon. As in my dream, my sister came to greet me at the doorway.

“I knew you were coming,” she said when we were close enough to speak without shouting.

“I’m so sorry,” I replied.

“I know,” she said, and embraced me with such strength I thought I might die of sorrow for having shut myself away from her for so long. I felt the old stone’s weight suddenly with a force I had not noticed in many a month, and I felt it grow warm as well in my breast. Brenna pulled out of the embrace then, and looked at me oddly. She next placed her hand over my heart, where the heat and heaviness were now becoming almost unbearable, and left it there some minutes without speaking. I saw a beautiful symbol appear upon her forehead etched in light even as I felt her vision penetrating into my heart.

I wanted to hide my unworthiness, then, but I had opened myself already and all my secrets were available to her through the vision of the Universal Eye. I felt the weight shifting as she tested it and explored it, and I deplored it but relinquished myself to the truth of how I had betrayed her. To my surprise, I felt the weight suddenly shift, and move through the wall of my body into her hand. To my surprise, there appeared in her hand a beautiful statuette of gold inlaid with precious stones, bearing likeness and names of herself and Unn. Somehow she had reached inside of me to take away what I thought was an ugly burden of guilt…and revealed to me that it was a treasure beyond compare.

She brought me into the temple then, and began to show me the ways of her world. Hathor was a goddess of the sky, she explained, and Great Mother of Egypt, connected to the cycles of the river Nile and of the land. She had been initiated into Hathor’s service, and was bound to the temple now, so she could not come home with me to the North, but she was happy and I would not again interfere with her happiness. That lesson, at least, I had learned.

I spent some weeks there, getting to know her world and her new friends; I even noticed the suggestion of a special friendship that might blossom into something more, and was rewarded by her confirming blush when I asked about the young man. But there was no hurry about it, I sensed, as she went about her temple duties - she served primarily as a teacher for the children of the village - and in time my own sense of unfinished business roused me to action. As a Lady of the Labyrinth Way, I was not destined to be bound to a single place and time, and my time here in Hathor’s temple was drawing to a close.

On the day of my departure, Hathor’s mentor called me in for an audience, and presented me with a gift from the temple: a bracelet in the shape of a coiled snake, very like the Uraeus that adorned Hathor’s own crown.

“Your sister cannot go with you to face what lies ahead, but she has asked us to give you Hathor’s blessing for your return. Hathor has smiled upon her request,” she said, fastening the bracelet up on my shield arm. “Call upon Hathor in Brenna’s name, and she will not fail to answer you in your hour of need.”

Sad as I was to be leaving my sister, the call of my path was undeniable; and I set forth with a lighter heart than I had known in many, many a year. The miles seemed to fly by as Riodhr bore me north toward the wall of Skogtårn-i-Sør.