Mist & Dawn - Starfire Trilogy, #1

A fisherwoman finds a dead man on a tiny offshore island, with no clue about how the man got there. A camel driver deep in the northern desert rescues a man who speaks no known language, but is clearly well-educated. An ancient sect that was considered close to extinct sucks in all the land's young people and creates tension that may well lead to a civil war. And the old astrologer to the court, a weaselly and much-maligned relic of old times, might have hidden, for twenty years, evidence that those things are connected. An epic saga of magic-turned-technology, power and discovery.