Rhythm Divine

[Tallis Ishtari]

18th day Summer 513

It was not an easy job being a gem cutter, but he had been taught well by his father. The lack of practice made him nervous however. He had asked his father for some work. Just him asking surprised his father who was more than sure his son had lost all interest in the trade. What really surprised the elder Ishtari was that his son was willing to watch the entire shop while he went out. It had been a long time since the elder Ishtari had a night off to entertain his wife and gladly gave his son the keys to the store.

The first few hours, while his father was still around to remind him where things where and triple check everything he was doing, were spent setting up. After making sure that he could maintain the correct speed on the grinding wheel he set about preforming a few garnets that his mother intended to set on rings in the morning. This was an important job he had been entrusted with and he needed to get right or he was sure to never hear the end of it.
After one final check the elder Ishtari left the shop leaving Tallis alone. He only had a few more hours before the jewelry shop would close and he could finish the more delicate part of the gem cutting procedure. For now though he still had work to do. The grinding in the back shop was placed just perfectly so he could see the entrance way into the shop if anyone happened to enter.

The garnets he would be cutting were slightly smaller than the nail on his pinky finger. He had cut gems this size before. Tallis was not anticipating any problems with them. Two of the gems had blemishes on them. One had a yellow spot that would easily be grinding off in the preforming stage, and the other had a small nick on it. Again, it would be an easy process to remove in the preforming stage.

Seating himself on the stool in front of the grinding wheel he continually stepped on a peddle that drove the grinding wheel around and around. With a few passes the two gemstones that were imperfect where now preshaped, and the third quickly after. With that process over it was time to heat the dop and the wax to affix a gem to. This is when the real cutting and shaping would take place. Within ten minutes he had a gem on the end of the dop and started bringing the wheel up to speed when the bell that alerted whenever someone entered the shop went off. Tallis did not stop working. He needed to get the first few cuts in before the gem cooled.

He could see someone enter the shop out of his peripheral vision, but could not make out if it was a man or a woman. “I’ll be right with you.” He said as he tried to make each cut on the gem as perfect and even as he could. “Have a look around and if you see anything you like just let me know.” A tiny smile etched across his lips as he saw his work start to take shape. It was only the first cuts and there would be more to make it a multi-faceted gem, but the gem was taking shape nicely.