Swell Foop by Piers Anthony

could use some help."
    "Sure. That promises to be interesting."
    Dafrey accompanied Che back to the storage room. "Do you know what this is?" Che asked, showing him the dried flower.
    "That's a begonia. It makes you have to go in a hurry."
    "No wonder I had to hurry! I didn't recognize it."
    They continued searching, but there was no Ring to be found. They returned to the kitchen to find the others there, similarly frustrated. "We could search for years," Zyzzyva said. "There's just too much junk here."
    "This seems hopeless," Che agreed wearily. "It's too well hidden."
    "Maybe you just need to think more like a Ring that doesn't want to be found," Dafrey said.
    "Think like a Ring?"
    "Yes. If you were a Ring, and you wanted to stay hidden forever, where would you hide?"
    "Under the Good Magician's dirty socks," Wira said.
    They all burst out laughing. Humfrey was notorious for being unable to keep up with his socks. His fourth wife was Sofia Socksorter, a Mundane woman he had married in an effort to get on top of that situation. But when she had eventually grown old and returned to Mundania, the socks had quickly gotten out of hand again. Now she had an afterlife as a sometime wife, but whenever she was off-duty the dirty socks piled up. There were piles that had lain seemingly undisturbed for decades.
    Then, almost together, they began to sober. "I wonder," Che said. "Who would ever look under a dirty sock?"
    "No one," Zyzzyva said. "Even a zombie would have trouble with the smell."
    "I think we had better look," Dara said. "Let's spread out again, this time collecting only socks."
    They did so. And in only another hour, Che picked up the last sock in the last crevice of the last chamber in his quadrant, and saw an earth-colored Ring.
    Could it be? He picked it up. It seemed to be made of clay, but was well formed. "How can I verify it?" Che asked uncertainly. "It could be a mere incidental trinket."
    "Father will know," Dafrey said.
    They returned to the kitchen. "I may have found it," Che announced loudly.
    In time ranging from two-thirds of a moment to one and a half moments, they were there. "That's it?" Zyzzyva asked, frowning.
    "May I touch it?" Wira asked.
    Che gave it to her. She tried it on her middle finger, and it fit well. "It's a nice Ring," she said, slipping it off and passing it to Dara, who had just popped in.
    "That's it," the demoness agreed, squinting at it. "See, it says RING OF EARTH inside."
    "But an imitation Ring could say the same," Zyzzyva pointed out.
    "We'll test it, then. Put it on, Che." She handed it back to him. "But be warned: Once you don it, you won't be able to remove it until its task is done. That may be a burden."
    "A burden?" he asked, slipping it on his little left finger, where it settled comfortably.
    "You now have dominion over all the land-bound animals—the creatures of the earth. That's a considerable responsibility."
    "I do?" he asked, surprised.
    "Test it," she suggested. "Give them a directive."
    Smiling, he did so. "Bow down to my left forehoof."
    Immediately Zyzzyva and Wira got down on the floor, facing his hoof. Dafrey got halfway down.
    "You're teasing me," he said, embarrassed.
    "No," Wira said. "I am compelled."
    "So am I," Zyzzyva said. "And I am not pleased."
    "But why doesn't it affect Dara? And what's Dafrey doing?"
    "I am not a creature of the Earth," Dara said. "I am compelled only by the Ring of Fire, which is not here. My son is half human, therefore half land-bound, so he bows halfway. But you can test it more directly: Try to remove it."
    Che did. The Ring, though not tight, absolutely refused to budge. It was locked on his finger.
    "Are you going to let us up?" Zyzzyva inquired with more than a trace of annoyance.
    Oh. "Yes, of course. Please rise."
    They got up and dusted themselves off. But Che wasn't satisfied. "If the Ring of Earth gives its wearer such power, why didn't it affect Wira when she tried it on? Why didn't it stick to her finger?"
    "Because