Ishabal Ladyhammer, or Isha, is Berenene dor Ocmore's top mage. She is a great-mage and the empress's most trusted adviser. She is also good friends with her colleague, Quenaill Shieldsman - a great mage who specialized in protective magics at the University of Lightsbridge. Ishabal is quite old, but an extremely powerful academic mage with a specialization in curse-weaving.
In 1043 KF when Lady Sandry and her foster brother and sisters come toNamorn, Ladyhammer helps the empress try and convince them to stay. Ishabal is also very aware of the young people's accomplishments, and points them out in public when they try to stay under the radar. When seeing how powerful Trisana Chandler is, Berenene decides that they must offer her a job and leaves that to Ishabal. She makes a very generous offer to the young weather-mage in hopes that the girl would stay in imperial service. When Briar, Tris, and Sandry demand an audience with the empress after saving Sandry from Finlach fer Hurich, both Ishabal, Quen, and Berenene become very wary of Tris as she is able to close a secret escape route using weather magic. After Sandry informs the empress that the four of them are leaving Namorn, Berenene orders Ishabal to "do something" about Trisana "subtly". Since the old mage is a curse-weaver of immeasurable skill, Ishabal concocts are curse that will severely injure Tris without killing her.
After hearing that Sandry has escaped Pershan fer Roth, and that Daja and Briar together took down Quen, Berenene demands that Ishabal raise an ancient magical barrier around the country. As no mage has been able to break through the barrier, this seems to be the most obvious course of action. Ishabal, however, advises her empress to just let them go, and to make it seem as if they were too barbaric and uncultured for life at the Namornese court. Berenene refuses this plan, but Ishabal persuades her to stay behind. That way, if the four did manage to bring down the border, it won't look like the empress was directly involved. At the border, Ishabal demands of the three mages (Daja, Sandry, Briar - Tris is not present) to bend the knee to their new mistress - refusing to name her if the border really was to fail. Ishabal and the barrier hold out for a bit, but this new challenge forces the mages to use their thread circle, and join together completely. The border falls and Ishabal experiences severe whiplash. She then asks if they will take the throne, as they are indeed powerful enough. The young mages respond that they wish to return home to Emelan.