One is the Sun

Earth Thunder had fled the ruins of a Mayan temple-school in Yucatan, survivor of a hideous massacre of learned priestesses who had fought to defend their freedom from the white man's church rule. All her life she had journeyed north in search of people who wanted to know Mother Earth and her interlocking Circles of Life.

From a bustling city in Europe, a noblewoman sent her family across the ocean, to renew a spiritual link with the Native American people. To her thirteen-year-old grandniece Helle she entrusted a tiny globe, symbol of Freia, as her own ancestors had called the Earth.

In her quest to honor Life, and share her knowledge, Earth Thunder freed a slave girl who would become her apprentice, River Singing. Golden-haired Helle also became Earth Thunder's apprentice. Together, the two young women helped build a new temple-school in the Deer Lodge Valley of Montana. There they put into action the old count that teaches of Life: One is the Sun, Two is the Earth . . . Five is humanity, self and spirit.

And, when danger threatened -- from a marauding highwayman and a hellfire preacher -- one of the last centers of ancient learning and healing in the West would fight bravely, and leave its mark in Time . . . .