It is a first volume of a 7-tome saga ''Dark Tower'' by Stephen King, telling a story about a journey
of a last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, to the legendary Dark Tower, being a center of worlds. Novel begins in a desert, where Roland, the last gunslinger is chasing Walter O''Dim, known as the Man in Black, throughout the Middleworld. Gunslingers are people somewhere in the middle between cowboys of the Wild West, knights of the Round Table and defenders of humanity and Roland is the las of them, a descendant in a straight line from Arthur Eld, a father of all of the gunslingers.
Chasing his adversary, Roland goes back in memory to the town of Tull, where he saw a man brought back from the dead, by the Man in Black and then onwards to meeting with a hermit and his crow till the place where his packmule had died of exhaustion. Chasing Walter, in a near-death state, gunslinger comes to an old, abandoned stage-coach station, where he meets Jake, a boy from New York, who found himself in this world after his death. Although, the boy is distrustful at first, they both quickly become friends and go on a further journey together. Just before leaving they find a demon, buried under the station and they took his jaw.
From the desert they come to hills at the foot of the
mountains. Here Roland is lured into an old stone circle, where he is sexualy abused by a spirit-succubus, who promises to answer to the gunslinger questions. After that they venture into mountains, encouraged by the fire lid by the Man in Black.
Going through the mountains they encounter the Slow Mutants, creatures so changed by radiation that they no longer resemble humans. When they manage to fend them off, and get out of the darkness, they come to an abyss. Roland manages to get over it, but the passage can''t hold Jake, who hangs over the ledge. He begs his friend for help, when the Man in Black steps in, and offers Roland to talk with him, for boy''s life. Roland with heavy heart lets Jake fall. Just before he falls to his second death Jake tells Roland ''then go, there are worlds other than this'', words that will haunt the gunslinger for all eternity.
Roland sits with Walter at a fireplace, because he wants to know the secret of the Dark Tower, which the latter knows. Instead of straight answers, Walter, using the demons jaw, tells Roland his future using a Black Tarot cards. Roland falls asleep. The first volume ends when Roland awakes on a beach many miles away.