ESO Recommended Server for India

There is fast travel between waypoints and a 'recall' function when out in the field.

Going to a visited wayshrine (one that has blue flame coming out of it) and interacting with it will allow you to warp from that one to ANY wayshrine you've previously unlocked in ANY zone. This is completely free.

If you're out in the field, however, and just want to quickly recall back to a wayshrine because you're in too deep, you can open your map through the menu and go to a location in any zone that you've previously visited a wayshrine. Again, clicking on that wayshrine will warp you there, but this costs some money. From what I've seen, it costs based upon distance and character level. It's still fairly cheap, though, and you can easily make the money back from selling things.

An alternate thing I've found is that if you're in a group, you can fast-travel to your group leader. This helps when you just got into the group and the leader is all the way in the dungeon already. Right-click their name in the upper left corner and use the Travel to Player option. (I think this is it, I will have to verify when I get home)

Normally, the game time would start from the moment you apply your key (either your game key, or the game time card key) to your account, or upon applying it when creating an account.

Though I can't give you an explicit answer specific to ESO, this is a structure shared by most paid MMOs, like World of Warcraft and so on.

That said, it should be safe buying the game now and not making an account until you want to start playing. To be absolutely safe, you could try checking with the publisher, if they respond in time.