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He noticed Asm was gone. He thinks Asm ran away. Note that this implies there was no body left. "If they discovered that he had held one of the Forsaken prisoner and allowed him to escape...He would deal with Asmodean himself if the man ever turned up again." (LOC, ?, A Woman's Eyes, 92)
Whoever killed Asmodean must have:
Any of the Forsaken would fulfill 2-6, and maybe 1. Padan Fain fulfills 3, 5, and 6, maybe 4, but 1 and 2 are a bit of a stretch.
From the LoC prologue, we see that Demandred doesn't know what happened to Asmodean: "Lanfear has vanished without a trace, just as Asmodean did." Hence, Demandred didn't kill him. But the Dark One's response seems to imply the DO might be behind what happened to Asmodean: "WHO BETRAYS ME SHALL DIE THE FINAL DEATH. ASMODEAN, TWISTED BY HIS WEAKNESS." (LoC: Prologue, The First Message, 15)
In LOC: 6, Threads Woven of Shadow, 141, Semirhage thinks to herself, "Asmoden. A traitor, and so doomed, but he really had vanished..." and later, "If the Great Lord moved her here secretly, might he not be moving Moghedien or Lanfear, or even Asmodean?" This seems to imply that Semirhage doesn't know what happened to Asm, and thus that she didn't kill him.
At a post-LoC signing in Chicago, RJ said that we have all the clues to figure out who killed Asmodean. I look upon this statement with skepticism. (Survey Says)
If we can figure out why he was killed, we might be able to throw some light on who killed him. One possibility is that he was the target of a premeditated assassination. The Shadow (i.e., the DO and all the Forsaken) would want to do this, because he was a traitor. Fain would want to do this, because either Fain knew Asm was helping Rand, or he thought Asm was trying to kill/turn/etc. Rand, and didn't want a Forsaken to defeat al'Thor -- that is Fain's mission in life. (Then again, Fain might not know anything about Asm's existence at all.) If it was premeditated, then how did the killer know Asm was heading for the wine closet? Maybe Asm was a frequent customer? Maybe the killer was hiding there, and took his chance when Asm walked in? Maybe he was close enough nearby to observe Asm's movements?
A second possibility is that Asm was not the specific target of the killer; he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps the killer was/is spying/plotting/etc. from within the ranks of the Dragon Reborn. Asmodean bumped into him on his way to the wine closet, recognized him, and got killed to protect his secret. Quoting from the relevant passage: "He pulled open a small door, intending to find his way to the pantry. There should be some decent wine." Then we have, "You? No!" He was going to look for wine. He probably opened a door to an empty storeroom or hallway. It was not a wine pantry. He hadn't found it, yet. If you re-read the passage, yourself, it seems that it may have even been an accident he ran into his killer (i.e., the killer wasn't planning on it, but since Asmodean saw him...). This motive fits well with the body being removed/destroyed. If the killing was for punishment, it would have made more sense for the body to be left, and the death widely publicized, to set an example. So, how could the body being discovered disclose something about the killer (to the other characters)? I can think of three possibilities: 1) The killer is part of Rand's entourage, and a dead Asm could make people suspicious that there was a traitor in the ranks. 2) There is a hole in Rand's security, and a dead Asm would inspire people to find it and patch it up. 3) The killer is hiding (not necessarily only from Rand -- could also be from the Forsaken), and a dead body could start folks thinking the killer was active. Think how Asm's death started us thinking that maybe Lanfear had returned, or that Ish was still around/around again, or that there had to be some sort of skulduggery going on.
Despite RJ's comments to the contrary, it is not at all obvious who did the dirty deed. One question to ask ourselves is why RJ is keeping it a secret. The lack of action on that front in LoC pretty much demonstrates that the murder itself is not a major plot thread, so there is no point in keeping it secret for the sake of keeping the reader in suspense. Some people feel that Asm's killing is itself a clue to something else that is going on, about which we don't know yet; something like the return of Lanfear or Ish or some other "dead" character, or that it is tied into the question of who Mazrim Taim really is, and what he's really up to. Now, we are not the only ones ignorant of the culprit. All of the characters (except one, obviously) are also ignorant of whodunnit (if they're Forsaken), or of what actually happenned (if they're Good Guys or rank-and-file DFs). So, if one of the surviving Forsaken killed Asm, they must have a reason for hiding it. After all, it's not like anybody would condemn them for punishing a traitor. Maybe one of the Forsaken is up to something in Caemlyn that he/she doesn't want any rivals for Nae'blis to know about. Anyway, that is something to think about.
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