Bah... that's debatable in the first place that the sound waves would have disappeared because the source of the sound got balefired, but anyway the word could still "hang on the air" up to the exact instant of Asmodean's death, it's only the next instant it would have been burned out of the pattern....


Since we are on pure silliness, try to explain how is it that Asmodean made no other sound when a knife or arrow or whatever killed him, why it was still his "no!" hanging on the air when he died, not a moan or groan or whatever...

Of course, if something that killed instantly like a weave hit him, he didn't have time to moan or groan...

By the figure of speech, Jordan was simply telling us Asmodean died instantly, or near instantly enough.

Don't overlook that up to seconds before he opened that door, Asmodean himself had no idea he was going to open it or that he even wanted wine... He was walking aimlessly, up to the instant he saw a door and thought it could lead to a pantry (ie: that was most likely a small door to a servants' wing of the palace where Asmodean might find a pantry and get wine, or at least Asmodean thought so). His killer was as surprised as Asmodean himself was surprised. His killer was faster to recover from the surprise and striked first. This clearly speaks for channelling - just think of the seconds it would take to draw a knife, aim and throw it, heck even if the killer happened to have the knife in hand it would take time. Longer than it would take a Forsaken to shield himself from the projectile and weave something nasty to attack, especially since Asmodean saw the threat since he said "no!". Of course, with balefire he could say no all he wanted, he could see the weave forming and it was already too late to do anything about it...