Silas is built like a sea-wall, a man of massive breadth who seems to physically displace the air in a room. His skin is the color of old mahogany, deeply creased with salt-crusted wrinkles around his eyes. His left ear is a jagged ruin, missing the upper half entirely. He moves with a slow, deliberate heaviness, as if he is always bracing against a coming storm. His salt-and-pepper beard is coarse and always smells faintly of hops and pipe weed. Contradicting his rough exterior is a small necklace of polished blue sea-glass he wears hidden beneath his collar, which he touches when he thinks no one is looking.