A gunslinger's broken memory and a boy's broken mind must both be healed before the train kills them all.
Who drives the story
The last gunslinger, whose divided memory of Jake is driving him mad. Burning Walter's jawbone frees him, and he completes the drawing of his ka-tet - then bargains with a suicidal train.
An eleven-year-old from 1977 New York torn between two lives and two deaths. He walks out of school, finds the key and the rose, crosses into Mid-World, and shoots the Tick-Tock Man.
The recovering addict whose hands save the day twice: the solution to Roland's paradox comes to him, and he carves the key - then the second key - that brings Jake home.
Former Odetta Holmes, gunslinger in her own right, who kills Shardik with Roland's gun and then traps a raping incubus with her mind to buy Jake safe passage.
Leader of the Grays, who keeps Jake prisoner in the sewers. Jake shoots him and leaves him for dead; the Ageless Stranger arrives to recruit the broken survivor as his servant.
Also in the story
A billy-bumbler Jake names and adopts: badger, raccoon and dog in one small body, with parrot speech. He follows Roland into the labyrinth and sewers of Lud without hesitation.
The insane AI of Lud's monorail, rotten with centuries of degradation. It gasses the city, plans to crash in Topeka, and agrees to a riddle contest it is obsessed with winning.
A Gray fighter who seizes Jake in the chaos of the bridge crossing and drags him into the labyrinth. Roland and Oy hunt him through the city and the sewers.
How they are connected
The last gunslinger, whose divided memory of Jake is driving him mad.
Jake ChambersThe Tick-Tock Man
He walks out of school, finds the key and the rose, crosses into Mid-World, and shoots the Tick-Tock Man.
The recovering addict whose hands save the day twice: the solution to Roland's paradox comes to him, and he carves the key - then the second key - that brings Jake home.
The recovering addict whose hands save the day twice: the solution to Roland's paradox comes to him, and he carves the key - then the second key - that brings Jake home.
Former Odetta Holmes, gunslinger in her own right, who kills Shardik with Roland's gun and then traps a raping incubus with her mind to buy Jake safe passage.
Former Odetta Holmes, gunslinger in her own right, who kills Shardik with Roland's gun and then traps a raping incubus with her mind to buy Jake safe passage.
A billy-bumbler Jake names and adopts: badger, raccoon and dog in one small body, with parrot speech.
He follows Roland into the labyrinth and sewers of Lud without hesitation.
A Gray fighter who seizes Jake in the chaos of the bridge crossing and drags him into the labyrinth.
Roland and Oy hunt him through the city and the sewers.
Roland and Oy hunt him through the city and the sewers.
Go deeper
A mind split in two · Ka-tet - fate as family · The world that outlived its makers · Riddles as survival
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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