Rumors of California gold ran wild. Rivers of solid gold lay hidden in mountain valleys and could be harvested with a pick and shovel. Indians would trade chunks of gold for a pretty scarf or a few beads. Somewhere is a secret lake of gold. On his seventeenth birthday Petr Valory has seven dreams he will be unable to recall when he awakens. But he will remember glimpses of them during his life: the creation of the Earth; the first bird; the Gold Lake itself, the first discoverers who kept it secret for thousands of years. These dreams reveal just a few of his lifetimes, "the red-haired man" Cellini, the Renaissance gold artist, or Agricola, author of the first text on gold mining. They haunt Petr and inform him. Petr Valory is at the heart of the California Gold Rush and the hunt for Gold Lake. He is The Goldfinder.