JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

and… er.'

      James pressed his lips together tentatively. 'It's a long shot,' he said, agreeing with Ralph.

       'I don't see you two coming up with any genius brainstorms,' Zane groused, pulling a huge picture book toward him. On the front of it was a moving photograph of the Loch Ness Monster snapping its prodigious jaws. The title was embossed in gold: 'MAGICAL FISH and MARINE LIFE OF THE WORLD'.

       'I'll be back in a few minutes,' James said, slipping out of his seat. 'I need to find a book for my kettles and cauldrons Home Ec paper.'

       'Don't remind me,' Ralph said, rolling his eyes. 'I have to write a paragraph on the difference between cupcakes and muffins.'

       'You ought to be an expert on that,' Zane said without looking up from his book. 'You ate three of each at breakfast just this morning.'

      Ralph frowned. 'It was research,' he said a little defensively.

       James worked his way back down the stairs to the main floor and then meandered through several rows of tall, crooked bookshelves. The highest levels seemed to totter precariously over him, their books threatening to spill from their shelves at the slightest provocation.

       After several turns, James finally found the reference section. Huge dusty volumes lined the shelves, bowing the wood under their accumulated weight. Finally, near the end of the aisle, James found what he was looking for. An entire section was devoted to an anthology of huge encyclopedias, all arranged by letter and subject. There appeared to be thousands of volumes in the collection, each cloth-bound in frayed beige, their spines nearly two feet tall. James craned his neck to see into the upper levels of the bookcase and then pulled one of the wheeled ladders toward him. The rungs squeaked as he began to climb.

       He stopped halfway up the ladder and reached carefully for a particular volume. A huge embossed letter S decorated the top portion of the spine. Beneath this were the words 'SNYXPORIUM through SORDHISIUS'. Clutching the heavy book against his chest, James inched back down the ladder. He sat down cross-legged on the floor at the base of the ladder and cradled the huge volume on his knees. After a brief pause, he opened it.

       The book smelled like mildew and dust, but its pages were thick and creamy-smooth, yellowed only slightly along the edges. Full-page illustrations filled the book alongside dense fields of small print.

Normally, of course, this was the sort of thing Rose would be assigned to do. As Zane had said, she really was like their very own personal research department. Some things, however, James had been reluctant to share even with his closest companions. The topic he was looking up now was one of those things. He began to riffle through the encyclopedia's pages as quietly as possible until he reached a particular heading, nearly halfway through. He stared down at the words, his lips pressed into a thin line.

SORCERESS

: see Sorcerer, female.

Slowly, James turned back a page. Leaning slightly lower over the book, he began to read.

SORCERER:

       Defined simplistically as a magical human male, a sorcerer should not be confused with a wizard. While both are primarily determined by their predisposition to spellwork, potion-making, and the use of magical objects, there is a marked difference in the fundamental source of those powers. While witches and wizards draw upon magical resources within their own bodies (see: Intrinsic Magic), sorcerers collect their powers from external resources, such as growing things, kinetic energy reserves (oceans), or even the passage of time (see: Elemental Magic, types and uses). For this reason, sorcerers (or, in the Old Language, Sourcereurs) are potentially far more powerful than a typical witch or wizard depending on the residual magical resources of their surroundings. Similarly, where a typical magical individual's power is a constant, a sorcerer's power may be diminished to the point of abject weakness if he is cut off from those magical resources.

It is interesting to note, however, that in every recorded instance, a sorcerer only derives power from one type of extrinsic source. For instance, a sorcerer who draws his strength from growing things will find himself considerably weakened when placed within a desert environment. Theoretically, this is an example of the law of conservation of powers, which predicts that absolute power will always be prohibited within a balanced natural world.

Origins and Explanations:

While there are many theories regarding the origins of sorcerers, none have been conclusively proven. All such theories, however, can be broken up into two predominant categories: the Serendipitous and the Causational.

The Serendipitous theory states that a sorcerer is always created when a certain series of variable requirements are met. The most well-known Serendipitous theory is the 'seventh son of a seventh son' premise, which merely states that any seventh male offspring of a wizard who is, himself, a seventh male offspring will, without exception, be a sorcerer. Other theories are far more complicated, suggesting deviations in times of the year, phases of the moon, ages and lineage of the parents, and even the number of windows in the room of the child's birth.

Adherents to the Causational theory, however, postulate a much different origin, owing itself not at all to randomly determined variables but to the balance of the magical world in general. In short, the Causational theory states that when the scales of the cosmos require a sorcerer (either to maintain balance or to destroy it), then a sorcerer will, out of sheer necessity, appear.

Notably, one variation of the Causational theory adds that there can never be only one sorcerer. In order for the polarities of destiny to remain in check (the theory claims) there must always be a duality: either no sorcerers whatsoever or two. This theory, however, like all the rest, has never been proven or disproven.

Historical Examples:

While any number of legendary sorcerers have appeared in the annals of history, there are very few documented cases of the existence of such individuals. The most well-known and verified instance is Merlinus Ambrosius, whose powers, mysterious origins, and legendary disappearance describe the very archetype of the classical sorcerer.

During his lifetime, he was known to conjure feats of such devastating natural ferocity, including (but not limited to) earthquakes, floods, typhoons, walking forests, and tidal waves, that he was by turns revered and/or vilified by all who knew of him. Since his time (approximately 935-980 AD) there has been no uncontested evidence of another living sorcerer.

Variations—Elves, Goblins, Sorceresses

While both elvenkind and goblinkind also derive their powers from extrinsic magical sources, they are not technically considered sorcerers (despite long-standing arguments by goblin leaders and species rights advocates). Since both goblins and elves can only contain the equivalent of any average magical person's power, they do not meet the 'Limitless Magical Expression requirement' (set forth by the Magical Defining Characteristics Census of 1177) for sorcerer status.

Contrariwise, there has existed a long-standing theory that claims that the existence of sorcerers implies, by logical necessity, the possibility of sorceresses—that is, a female whose source of power is extrinsic and who is capable of summoning limitless expressions of that extrinsic resource based upon its availability. Despite this, no irrefutable example of such a person has ever been verified.

       James lowered the book and leaned slowly back, letting his head bump the bookshelf behind him. For several seconds, he merely stared up past the canyon of the leaning bookcases toward the books which flapped