A Fog Warden who volunteered for the Overlook posting, and the man Noname was to marry. One night he failed to return, and no trace of him has surfaced since.
The Disappearance
Maruk vanished the same night a scarred stranger appeared at the fog line below the Overlook. No body was recovered, and the circumstances remain unclear — even Noname, who was closest to it, cannot give a clean account of that night. His absence is one of the city's quieter open wounds.
Connections
- Noname — His fiancée, now seeking treatment for her clouded memory of the night he disappeared.
- A scarred stranger — Appeared at the fog line the same night Maruk vanished. Currently comatose at St. Viro's Respite; no one has named him.
- The Overlook — Cross-references this character.
Beyond Relief
From Beyond Relief.
Forty-five days after he entered the fog, Maruk Grommarg was taken off the living duty roll at the Fog Wardens' Garrison. Rotations officer Ferro Lask conducted the rite: no Warden had relieved him, no body had been recovered, and no watch may remain open forever. His brass plate — third from the bottom on the duty wall — was lifted down and turned face-down into the iron cabinet marked BEYOND RELIEF.
His slate had been cut the week before and set at the near end of the slate gallery, the mortar still pale. Caravel "Car" Asteri hung the blank Masquers' Sodality mask on the peg beneath it, facing outward, because there was no body. Car first put the mask into Noname's hands, as the form requires; she handed it back.
With the rite complete, his effects were released to next of kin. The garrison quartermaster brought the satchel to Noname on the apron, with a manifest tag of fifteen lines and four signatures. The last line on it was Lantern, Warden issue — 1.
Among the effects were three things that were not ordinary: a cheap Il Conto ledger whose last entry reads A. Manse, phys., ret. — and then stops, with a quarter-page of blank paper after it; a Warden sample vial with the number deliberately scraped off, resealed with plain thumb-pressed candle wax, holding something dark that does not slosh; and his own lantern, rebuilt with a disc of mirror glass for a front lens, burned for weeks and bone dry. Noname's name does not appear anywhere in the ledger.