In a hut on the edges of the Mohaine Desert, Roland Deschain—the only survivor of the Battle of Jericho Hill—tells a desert dweller named Brown about his return to the haunted ruins of Gilead, and about the ghosts and the mutants he battled there. He also tells about his friendship with a bumbler, and about the invisible Not-Men he battled in a place called Kingstown so that he could save the life of a girl named Susan.