Devil's Key

Experienced historical novelist Otomar Dvořák has taken a fresh look at the folk legends passed down through the Bohemian Karst and Křivoklát Highlands. In the story of the shepherd Matěj, who, by a strange coincidence, discovers the mysterious Devil's Key in the Kotýz rocks, he unfolds a chilling tale on the border between horror and fantasy.

From the moment he takes possession of the key, the poor orphan is pursued by dark forces. He flees from them through a landscape devastated after the Thirty Years' War, where mythical creatures come to life again to lure pilgrims into treacherous traps. Along the way, the shepherd is joined by a simple-minded monk returning to his monastery with a flask of miraculous water, and a strange, cunning student who knows far too much about magic and alchemy. Will this unlikely trio manage to escape the snares of hell itself? However, none of them suspect that the greatest horror awaits them just when they think they are safe – behind the walls of the Benedictine monastery of Svatý Jan pod Skalou (Saint John under the Rock)…

The short story Son of the River then takes us back in time, set not far away, but many hundreds of years earlier. We find ourselves near the sacred Grove by the Vltava River, where a fanatical Christian tries to break the power of the pagan sacrificial site. But the warrior for the new faith does not know that by defeating the Servant of the Great Oak and cutting off the Thunder Branch, he will also destroy his own past. And not just his past…