Malik ibn-Zayd is a weathered human man with a broad, slightly stooped frame built by decades of climbing terraces and carrying wounded laborers downhill. His face is the color of sun-baked olive wood, crosshatched with fine lines around the mouth and eyes. His nose was broken long ago and healed crooked, giving his stern expression an almost birdlike angle. One leg drags with a permanent limp, yet his upper body moves with startling precision, as if every gesture has been measured before he makes it. His beard is clipped short but uneven, silver at the chin and black near the jaw. His hands are thick-knuckled, scarred, and permanently stained with green dye from the Hall's banner cloth. He leaves an impression of battered iron and freshly watered soil. The contradiction is that his intimidating silhouette is softened by a small, meticulously polished blue glass bead braided into his beard, a child's trinket he refuses to remove.