Roland Deschain and his ka-tet (Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and the creature Oy) are caught in a tremendous storm just after crossing the River Whye on the way to the Outer Baronies. And while they shelter from the howling wind, Roland tells not one but two stories, casting new light on his dark past.
Soon after Roland kills his mother, his father sends him to investigate murders committed by a shapeshifter known as the “skin-man,” who is terrorizing the people living near Debaria. Roland takes with him Bill Streeter, the boy who is the only surviving witness to the beast’s latest crimes. Still little more than a teenager himself, the gunslinger comforts the child and prepares him for the coming investigation by reading aloud stories from the book “The Magic Tales of the Eld,” which Roland’s mother once read to the future Gunslinger in his childhood. “People are never too old for stories,” Roland reads. “Boys and men, girls and women, there is no one who outgrows them. We live for stories.” And indeed, the tale Roland reads—the legend of Tim Stoutheart—is a priceless gift to anyone, no matter how old they are; it is a story that lives for us.