Barras nodded slowly. “You may leave us for now. Mildred is able to care for my needs while I talk, and we must have privacy. She will call for you when I am done. Perhaps,” he added with the sudden reappearance of a mischievous glint, “Arun will be on duty. I know you have feelings for him from the way you mention his name.”
“Thank you, my baron.” The healer giggled, leaving them alone. Mildred watched her go, thinking she would be disappointed when she saw Markos outside. But it did, in a flash sadly growing rarer, show her again how the baron had to have been in his prime, and why he had been a popular leader.
Barras waited for the door to close before grasping Mildred’s hand tightly. He spoke rapidly and with urgency.
“I must say this, and quickly, for I do not know how long it will be before the dream time once again descends upon me. And the next time may be the final time, and I become as a dream once more. Now, I am lucid, and I want you to listen carefully.”
“You’ve got my full attention. But why can’t Sineta know this?” Mildred couldn’t help but ask.
Barras shook his head impatiently. “In the regular course of events, it would have been told to her and her husband before the time came for me to die. But I do not know if she will take the hand of Markos, or Elias, or will opt to continue alone. If alone, and at such a time, the knowledge of this secret would put her in more danger than a wild bore with the hunt on its tail.”
“Why? Why now?”
Barras grasped her hand harder, his bony fingers indenting her flesh. “Listen, and you will understand. When this ville was first built, and the island first inhabited by those escaping bondage, they did not come empty handed. The concept of money and riches have meant little on the island as we are insular, but our forefathers came from an outside world where such values were paramount. They knew these things meant much to those who had enslaved them, and they knew that to survive in such a world they would need riches of their own. So they took from their masters whenever possible, when they were to escape. Arriving, it soon became obvious that these things were superfluous here, and that they would have no practical use. So they were gathered and kept in a secret place known only to a few, as they would serve if we should ever need to leave the island to deal with the whitelands again.
“The store of such riches was added to when people arrived with more stolen treasures. It was always presumed that these things would be useful one day.
“And then came skydark and the hard years after. In the struggle to survive, the store of whiteland riches— for that is what they were, having no meaning to us outside of that—was largely forgotten, the location becoming a secret that was passed only from baron to baron, so that it would be known if ever a time came when the treasures of the whitelands became needed. “So it would have continued. I would pass the secret on to Sineta and whoever became her husband, and they would pass it on to their children, and it would always be there for times of need.
“But that has changed. Now the Pilatans must move to the mainland, and the riches may be needed. I am no fool—I know that some of the treasures will mean nothing and have no value in the whitelands. Priorities for all have changed since the nukecaust and the long darkness that followed. The value of things is relative to need and desire, I know this. Those treasures have only a fraction of the value they may have held at the time they were first brought here. But they still have value at least to barons, and I have seen the horde. I have seen it, and I will tell you that it will still have value in the whitelands, and that this is the time for it to be disinterred and taken with the islanders into the whitelands.”