BLUB... BLUB... POOF!
A ten-foot-wide bubble of thick gray mud swelled up in the middle of the swamp on World 18, popped with a wet squelch, and released a cloud of yellow sulfur gas that smelled like ten thousand rotten duck eggs baked in an old boot.
On the front platform of the Spirit-Furnace Star-Train, even Old Yellow the Golden Dragon-Camel—a beast who happily chewed rusted iron and volcanic rocks—sneezed three times and clamped both of his front hooves tightly over his nostrils.
“Good heavens!” Hong Ling gasped, holding a wet towel soaked in vinegar over her nose and mouth. “Young Master, no wonder Bald Vulture didn’t even bother dumping rusty swords on World 18! Even the trash barges couldn’t stand this smell! If a bird flew over this swamp, it would faint from the stink and fall straight into the mud!”
Pei Xuan stood at the edge of the stone railway causeway, holding his breath slightly as he looked out over the fourth planet in the cluster.
Unlike the other three worlds, World 18 had no mountains or flat plains. Ninety percent of the planet’s surface was covered in shallow, bubbling gray mud-flats heated by deep geothermal vents. Thick yellow steam hung three feet above the mud, and only a few twisted, leafless black marsh-trees poked out of the mire.
