The elven List Keeper wasn't the easiest of the fey to gain access to. His was a lofty position, both literally and metaphorically. An ancient scholar though his appearance was that of a younger elf, he had long become withdrawn under the weight of his knowledge and responsibility.
After Timmy and Garm's close encounter with the evil island in the lake, they had fortunately escaped without quite knowing how or what they had narrowly escaped from.
Once safely ashore they had sought out advice from the elves as to how best to evaluate those circumstances and eventually found themselves guided to the List Keeper who lived atop a lofty tower that hummed with the forces which Garm called 'magic' being the dwarvish term for anything unknown or misunderstood.
After a lengthy consultation, Liet for that was the List Keepers name, decided that the best course of action was to explain the roots of Brythan's Barrier, as best he could, knowing that it could take quite a few days to do so with no guarantee that it would make any sense to the dwarf although the human boy seemed half fey himself and open to new ideas, something the dwarves were notoriously hostile to.
"Let me start at the beginning..." Liet began. This island we inhabit is simply part of the larger continent to which it is attached by the seabed that was once above water, a marshy land inhabited by herds of wild animals that few hunters sought.
This continent itself is part of an even larger landmass and in much the same way the life on this world of ours is intimately connected each species with the next even though you may not be able to understand it. There are a few clues such as the way certain animals like dogs and cats and sheep have become our companions but in fact the smallest insect is a part of the same web of life.
Our world is not a collection of mud, rocks, water and separate lifeforms, it is an entity just as we consider ourselves to be and in the beginning when life first began, it took quite a while for the world to become as an infant, aware of itself and during the beginning of its awakening, its awareness resulted in two separate life forces which struggled for dominance of the rest.