The Start of Time

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  The language was actually very simple. The spoken word for hand and foot were the same, but the telepathic sense was different. The word was actually more like “body part” modified mentally for each different appendage. We played this game for a few minutes, Aeyli-ah placing my hand on her arm, and then me placing her hand on my head and repeating the phrase and practicing the skill I needed to learn. We worked our way through hands, feet, arms, legs, head, facial features, shoulders, and so on. When those were exhausted, Aeyli-ah looked at me earnestly and smiled and said, “calm, rest, trust” and placed my hand upon her breast, then pulled it down to her buttocks, then back to her breast and onto her nipples. I allowed her to have me touch her intimately like this…and it was apparent that it was intimate and not just a classroom study. The meanings had intimacy to them. I reciprocated and ran her hand over my body as well as I repeated the words and meanings that she was teaching me.

  Aeyli-ah again thought, “calm, OK, receive” and she took my hand and pressed it between her legs and encouraged my fingers along the slit of her labia. I gave myself to it, not knowing if this were a mating ritual and whether I was consenting to a marriage proposal or not. If I was, I was a lucky bastard. Aeyli-ah’s eyes closed as I touched her and she spread her legs slightly to give me better access. I slid my middle finger hesitantly down through the folds, paying close attention to whether this seemed to be what she wanted or not. I didn’t enter her, but I did feel the hint of moisture and warmth building just behind the opening to her sex.

  I pulled my hand back, but kept her hand clasped in mine as I placed her palm on my belly, below my navel, but above my pubic hair. I looked at her and smiled and she moved her hand tentatively downward, making sure that I was OK with it. Aeyli-ah pushed her fingers down through the curls of my pubic hair and encircled my stiffening shaft and told me the word for penis , and then ‘big, wonderful, inspiring…desirable, nice, handsome.”

  She stroked me a few times and then slowly pulled her hand away. I put my hands on her shoulders and took a chance and said, “Trust? Lips?” and moved my lips toward hers. She beamed at me in approval and tilted her lips toward mine and I kissed her on the mouth. It was a simple kiss and it didn’t last long, but it was the sweetest first kiss imaginable. Aeyli-ah and I were bound together. I could feel it. If it was a marriage proposal, I consented with my whole heart at this point. And, now I didn’t know what to do.

  I asked, “Hurry? Go?”

  Aeyli-ah nodded and I pulled her back onto my back and she pointed the way I we should be headed. It was well after noon now, but several hours remained until sundown. I ran on, but said, “ Aeyli-ah, many, more, names, callings?” It was the best I could do to ask her to continue her teaching. She wrapped her arms around my neck and began speaking in my ear. “Good” was the first word.

  The progress was fast, both over the ground and learning the language. As I had said, it was a simple language and reinforced by the direct telepathic associations. I only had to be told once. In another two hours, I had enough to be able to speak with my “companion, mate?” fairly well. The grammar was different than English, so a direct translation would be very difficult to write, and to read, but it was easy enough to interpret what was communicated.

  After two hours of steady progress, I slowed down and finally stopped. I was tiring. I set Aeyli-ah down, and bent over to catch my breath. By now I felt that I could probably carry on a conversation and said, “I’m sorry, I’m tired, can we rest for just a moment , and then we can go on.”

  Aeyli-ah said, “Yes, rest. You ran very far. And carrying me on your back. You must rest. But look in the distance. See those small buildings? That’s where we are going. It will take another hour, if we were fresh, and we aren’t. I have been without water for several days and I’m getting weak. I couldn’t have traveled this far on my own. When you reach the place, find the large building in the center. There will be a place in the floor and water underneath. Refresh yourself and if you can, revive me. I hope that you can. Lie down and let me nourish you from my body.”

  She encouraged me to lie down and knelt over me as she had done when she revived me earlier and offered me her breasts again. I suckled gently and took in the nourishing milk and began to feel better after just a few swallows. I didn’t want to take too much, not knowing how taxing it might be for Aeyli-ah. Sensing that I was done, she rolled onto her back and lay beside me. She took my hand and we rested side by side.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Mark. Please forgive me. You were dying and I couldn’t bring myself to allow it. I did what I had to do. I know that you are from the home world of our Warlord, John Carter. I know that your customs are different from mine, and I would forgive you any breach or inadvertent offense. It has been my pleasure to serve at the shrine for all of these years, and my greatest honor to give my life to save you. I fear that from here on, you’ll travel alone. But Mark, I don’t want to die!”

  I said, “ Aeyli-ah, why are you asking me to forgive you? For what? You have only been kind and loving to me! How can I forgive you when you have shown me only the greatest…love? I will get you to the water. It isn’t far. We can make it. I won’t let you die.”

  She said, “I know that you don’t know what you’re saying and I love you even more for it. But to be fair to you, I should explain before I lose the ability. Just listen. I fed you from my breast…as a mate does. But, you didn’t choose me. I am bound to you now until I die. No other man may ever have me. And I would I never accept one. I bound myself to you as my mate when you were unable to refuse or consent. And how could you consent even if you had been conscious at the time? You didn’t know me and you couldn’t love me. What I did, I did out of desperation, knowing that I had to save your life even if it meant that I had to lose mine. I couldn’t let you die. Not after so long, waiting.”

  I said, “But, I am grateful. Why does this mean that you’ll die? I will get you to the water and I will revive you!”

  She said, “But Mark, I gave you no chance to choose me. The only way to break the bond is death, and you have to live.”

  I thought quickly. “ Aeyli-ah, do you want to break the bond? I don’t! I want to know you. I already love you! Be my mate and live - please, I beg you! Forgive me if I have done something wrong. I was only trying to do what would help us both. You have been so loving to me. I’ll never leave you!”

  Then, grasping at straws I said, “As your mate, I say that you must live. I tell you to!”

  The girl looked at me and said, “Mark! You don’t say that out of pity, you mean it! If that’s truly how you feel, there is a way. If you would really have me…if you do choose me freely, there is one way.”

  I said earnestly, “Tell me! You know that I can’t know anything unless you lead me to the answer! Tell me and I’ll do it immediately! I choose you for my mate, forever, bound together for life! Aeyli-ah, I will love and cherish you forever. Now tell me what to do!”

  She said, “Mark, it’s simple, if you mean what you say, and I know that you do. You need to feed me like I fed you.”

  Aeyli-ah smiled and rose on her hands and kissed me passionately. Then she slid down my body…and swallowed my penis! She didn’t waste any time. She used what moisture her mouth could still produce and began sucking on me wildly. It was a surprise attack, but if this is what she needed, I’d give it to her as quickly as I possibly could. It seemed that the Martian girl’s throat had no gag reflex and she pushed herself up and down the length of my penis, making swallowing motions as she licked at the underside and base of the shaft.

  I gave in as quickly as I could and my juices poured into the eager girl’s mouth and down her throat. Aeyli-ah swallowed every drop, and then put her fingers around my penis and pulled along the length of it, squeezing any remaining drops of the salty juices to the top. She continued sucking until she had taken everything she could get from me. When she was done, she collapsed on top of me and lost consciousness.

  I
rolled her onto the moss beside me and checked her breathing and pulse. She seemed to be fine, but sleeping. I pulled her onto my back and hurried on toward our destination. The going was more difficult with her unconscious, but it was manageable.

  About 10 minutes later, I felt her stir and I stopped and lay her back down on the ground.

  I said, “Aeyli-ah, how are you. I will get you to the water, I promise.”

  Opening her eyes she said, “I feel stronger now. The protein and salt you gave me is enough to sustain me for a bit longer. We need to get to the ruins and get water, but now I’ll live at least until morning. Our bodies feed each other, but I’m afraid that we’ll both be too weak before long to do this again. We have get to the water soon, and before dark.”

  I picked her up again and started moving as quickly as I could toward our destination. I was determined to use my last bits of life to safeguard this beautiful woman who had already saved my life.

  Chapter 7 History Lesson and Sheltering

  “Aeyli-ah”, I asked as we ran, “How old are you?”

  She answered, “I was born just after the great wars and the fall of time, almost 70 years ago. When I was of age, at 20 years, I applied to be a shrine maiden and I have served for almost 50 years. From that day until today.”

  I said, “So, is 20 the age when girls take a mate?”

  She said, “They may. But now, finding a mate is difficult. I didn’t care. I hoped that my mate would come through the shrine, and you did!”

  I was secretly relieved. The girl was actually older than I was and I wasn’t robbing a cradle. She was well past maturity and I had nothing to feel ashamed of. Well, except possibly for my own beginnings of gray hair and declining physical abilities compared with her ageless beauty. 70 years old?

  I asked, “Will you teach me the story? What are the great wars and the fall of time? Is John Carter still alive?”

  She started to bring me up to speed on what had happened on Barsoom since the time that Carter had written the manuscript that I had acquired. The year on Barsoom is slightly longer than on Earth, but I translated into Earth years because it gave me a better sense of the time-line.

  Aeyli-ah said, “The Warlord, John Carter was very active in the past days, before I was born. No one that I know can say if he’s still alive or not. About 10 years before I was born, 80 years ago, the Green Hordes of the Tharks began to get restless and could no longer live among humans. They had been at war for centuries before the Warlord came, and now they had decades of peace. It seemed like a madness came over them. The Warlord and his navies kept them from attacking the human cities at first, and the hordes turned on each other in ferocious civil wars. Their leadership was killed or collapsed and even the traditional tribal structures seemed to fail. They warred against other nations and then against other tribes and finally against families. Before the end, only gangs and mobs remained, but there were multitudes of them.

  At the time, the Green Men fought so much that all trust and semblance of order disappeared and they swept over every city they came near. They were no longer hunters; they became scavengers and savages. They say that as they advanced, the armies of John Carter fought to save civilization, but the casualties were enormous and each wave of invaders was destroyed only at the cost of another great city and another great army. Maybe a sickness drove them. The only thing that stopped them from their savagery was their own death.

  The face of the planet changed. Where vegetation had once been scarce, it fed on the blood of the multitudes slain in battle and became more verdant than ever. It changed the climate and the weather in many places. There are areas where rainfall is as high as three or four inches per year, and at times, standing water can be found for months at a time far from the great river Iss.

  But, settlements are rare and the population is lower than may be sustainable. The planet may die. At least the human population may.

  As the Red cities fell to the Green insanity, other races were persuaded by evil men to rebel against the Warlord and the peace that he had forged over the entire planet. Every nation fought its neighbor…or it isolated itself in an attempt to protect itself.

  The fall of time took just less than 10 years. Centuries erased in a moment. Each nation lost communication with its neighbor; if it hadn’t already conquered and killed them. Conquered nations were subjugated, and then rose against their oppressors and conquered them in turn, and with each iteration, the population grew smaller. The great white apes were nearly wiped out as well. There are signs, troubling signs, that the ape populations are increasing again, while the birthrate among the humans seems to have declined to almost nothing.

  Eventually, the only survivors were those who had enough courage not to fight. Not cowards, but reasonable men and women who banded together, with no regard for racial differences. People who worked hard to survive the wars, not to win them. My own skin is a mixture of a father of one race and a mother of another, though both died while I was very young and I have little memory of either of them.

  The settlement that you were heading toward is in ruins now. At the time that John Carter created the shrine, it was thriving and you would have found travelers to help you long before you had traveled this far. But today, you wouldn’t make it.

  This is why the shrine maidens exist. After I was born, but while I was still a child, a woman came from Helium. She claimed to be from John Carter’s house and had escaped the wars. She set up a watch for anyone who would come from John Carter’s home world, to help them if any made it through the portal. She said that she had been charged to do so by the Warlord, but that the rest of her companions had all been slaughtered years before she reached my village. This woman, Nathalie, recruited shrine maidens to watch and to keep the shrine safe.

  I have served for almost 50 years. I am near the shrine for a month at a time and then another takes my place and I return again every fourth month. At one time, a maiden would serve only two weeks at a time and just one time each year, but now there aren’t many of us left. Most have moved away and given up their duties…or given up their faith that what we did had any meaning. Another left recently, just before I started my turn and now there are only three of us. Each of us had vowed to stay until our eventual deaths, but who knows who would have really been able to do so.”

  I said, “Aeyli-ah, I am so thankful that you served so faithfully. It’s a one-way trip for the most part, and there’s no way that I would have survived to make the return journey.”

  As she clung to my back, I could not see her face as she asked, “Will you make the return journey?”

  I assured her, “I will not. At least not alone. I have a mate now, a chosen one. I am with you forever. But, Aeyli-ah…” and I stopped and set her down to face me. “Aeyli-ah, I had another mate on my world. She died. Does that matter to you?”

  She said, “It matters very much. It means that my mate knows what love is…in many ways. That’s good for me. Obviously, I have never had a mate…as we will see before the sun rises tomorrow…but did you have children?”

  I answered, “I have a son. He’s grown and ready to take a mate of his own. He’s a good man.”

  She smiled and said, “That’s wonderful news! A fine son already! If he were here…but never mind. Mark, will more come through the shrine?”

  I said, “No. I’m certain that they won’t. The shrine was hidden for a hundred years on my world. It took a long time for me to find it, and now only my son has the location. Much like you, he has instructions to look for me to send a message two years from the day I arrived here. But he won’t come here because he won’t leave his life there. Someday he might pass the knowledge to his son, but no one will come through the portal for a very long time.”

  She said, “So, my work is done. It’s a great relief. We’ll need to find the other maidens and tell them. But I need to explain other things before we do. Those things can wait. Look, it’s not very far now. We will make it before dark. T
hat’s very, very good. Can you keep going?”

  I swept the girl onto my back once more and took off at a run.

  I said, “Aeyli-ah, I think that I need a weapon. Is that true? And where can I find one?”

  She said, “A good weapon is a very, very good idea. What kind are you comfortable with? We won’t find any firearms.”

  I said, “My preference is for a strong, light branch of wood, about the length of my leg, from my waist to the ground. About as big around as will be comfortable to grip in my hand. A metal rod would also work. I would use a sword, but I’m not sure that the swords of Barsoom would suit me.”

  She said, “You intend to make a sword out of wood? If that’s the skill you have, we can do that. We can find a wooden pole like you describe. You can shape it with the knife at your belt. The wood is exceedingly hard, but that knife is exceedingly sharp. I have spent many hours working the wood and carving it; I can help you. Can you teach me to use one of those swords as well?”

  I said, “Yes, I can. I’ll be happy to. Um, is it customary to give a mate some token? A ring or jewelry?”

  She laughed, “Perhaps some customs are not so foreign between your world and mine. Yes, a man will often give a ring or necklace as a pledge and a token and a remembrance to the times when he must be separate from his mate, but I don’t need anything like that.”

  I reached into the pouch at my side and felt for the stones and looked down to find a scarlet ruby looking gem.

  I said, “I don’t have a ring or a necklace, but would you like to have this as a token and a pledge?”

  I held the stone over my shoulder for her.

  She gasped, “Mark, this would buy a house! Two would buy a farm and land!”

  I said, “Do you like it? Will it do for now? Until I can have it set in a necklace maybe? Will you take it as my token of love? It’s all that I can offer for now.”