In Desert of the Third Sin, Drew Hayes tells a story that spans six issues of the Poison Elves series. It starts with Lusiphur making three wishes, and then tells the consequences of those wishes. For in this realm Djinni do not create objects to fulfill wishes, they take either the object itself or the elements to create it from others.

The Djinni does not explain that little detail to Lusiphur as his wishes were deemed reasonable. (His first "wish" for a million more wishes was not.)

What happens next follows from how the wishes are fulfilled. And Lusiphur is quickly confronted with the consequences of his greed. (By the by, greed is the third sin.) And it is in small touches like this and his attention to detail that Drew Hayes shines.

Hayes continues to reveal more of the Amrlynn, its politics and denizens as he tells each story. And characters we have seen before in passing reenter the story we are told when time is right. But back to where I was, with Lusiphur in the desert after his wishes were fulfilled.

It is here that we meet an Elvin Warduke, a former hero who earned his fierce reputation in battle. The Warduke is having a bad day. First he has to let some annoying humans settle near his lands (killing them all off was not an option), then a magic sword disappears from his castle (it was the last of its kind). Add to that a rude rogue thief and the "loss" of his wizard's assistance mid-battle. Finish it off with dying after he gets his hands on the sword, and you have one real bad day. He was probably outraged by day's end.

Then comes the Wizard Tenth, who objects to his energy being tapped without permission. He challenges Lusiphur to a contest, which readers can watch from both perspectives. Tenth shares some interesting thoughts on identity and profession, and does his best to arrange a "fair" match between himself and Lusiphur -- but things seem tilted in the elf's favor just the same.

The last to stop by is an E'jja. E'jja are dimension-jumping assassins who can only be killed one way. They also tend to be rather not nice, and this one is after a "toy" which absorbs and destroys souls -- like I said, they aren't nice. The first thing the assassin does is tell Lusiphur how it will kill him, then goes inside Lusiphur's skull and, well ... fails. It then switches planes of attack and keeps coming; Lusiphur luckily gets some assistance from Parintachin, who lives in the elf's head, and his old friend Jace. (Confused? Read the book.)

The final issue updates the reader on the fates of various characters of the series.

The art continues to be excellent, capturing the mood of the moment and of the characters consistantly. While this collection is largely self-contained -- an exception being the last issue -- it is not entirely so. Characters and details from previous issues return. (Jace teaming up with Lusiphur during the fight with the E'jja, for instance.) Events that happened here also had and continue to have an impact on the ongoing story that Drew Hayes is weaving for us.

[ by Paul de Bruijn ]